I, like many of us here on dumpshock, use the Logic + Skill for hacking test. One interesting side-effect of this, is that all of the Logic buffs like Encephalons, Cerebral Boosters, Math SPUs, etc. allow hacker characters (in particular, but not exclusively) to have a fairly wide range of decent dicepools in skills like Hardware, Demolitions, Chemistry, Biotech, Mechanic, as well as knowledge skills like genetics, geology, biology, etc.

I realised the other day while game mastering one of these min-maxed Logic characters that these skills are interesting skills to have on your shadow resume. If you let your fixer know that in addition to being an accomplished hacker with a runner team, you're also quite accomplished in a diverse range of academic and technological fields then the job offers you get will expand as well.

For example, let's look at the second book in William Gibson's sprawl trilogy, Count Zero. In addition to hackers and mercenaries, the extraction operation featured in the book involves a large complement of technical support, including a mobile black clinic of doctors to disable any kinks the extraction target might have been given by his parent corporation, and a whole group of engineers and other techs who set up the secure network needed for the operation.

This is a brainstorming thread, focusing on run ideas that involve more than the usual shadowrun duties.

To use the count zero example again, the team might not only be hired to extract a target, but the team is hired with the knowledge that one of the characters is a skilled biotechnician who can deal with the target's kink bombs/carcerands/etc. on site, because once the target's PAN leaves the signal range of the facility's network, the kink activates and turns him into meat. Because the other runners need something to do while this happens, perhaps a corporate security team comes after the target (or another runner team), and the rest of the runners need to hold off an opposing force until the operation is done.

Maybe the Johnson wants the team to infiltrate a research facility, but he doesn't want the research to leave the facility, he just wants it analyzed. So in addition to breaking in, the hacker actually has to pore through schematics and research papers to figure out what exactly is being researched.

Or perhaps there's a researcher who's in a state of house arrest, but his deadline is closing in and he needs an assistant to get it done on time (hello teamwork tests), except he can't let his parent corp know he's using outside help, so the runners have to break into a SOTA secured lab, and make sure they aren't compromised by the security spider before the work is complete.

How's this. A Shadowrunner's girlfriend has just gone into labour and she can't be moved. Unfortunately for the parents to be, the Shadowrunner has just fouled up a run and he's got other runners/gangers/corporate security/the police closing in, and so the runners not only have to act as midwives to this pregnancy while under seige, and then once the baby is delivered, they have to escape.

Any other ideas?

He was an NPC is one of my games, but I had a street doc that was skilled in pharmacuticals, psychology and hacking. His day job was patching up the neighborhood's sick, as well as, the local runners' wounds. His night job was as an independent researcher trying to develop a drug/technological approach to combating the fight or flight response thereby allowing emergemcy personel and/or runners to keep their calm in dangerous ans stressful situations.

He would hire runners to test the drug and put them thru a series of VR simulations. If that was successful then he would coninue on to "live-fire" trials.

Street name for this therapy/drug: "The Chill Pill."

you just gave me some ideas... my players are soooo gonna hate you :lol

I once played a character in a Cyberpunk game who opposite of your average runner. He was a white Zimbabwean living in Botswana. His specialty? 20 years of experience as a mining engineer. He was over 6 feet tall and weighed in at 300 pounds; had two teenage daughters and a Botswan wife; suffered diabetes and had an encyclopaedic knowledge of engineering and engineering equipment. I used to describe him as being a hippo, big large and very territorial.

what about having a johnson hire the team to brake into a med lab to find what cow has a bio cure or wepon in it dna ala armatason I think.

then having to sell said cow. they would have to use there medcal knowage to find the right cow

Wouldn't you archive same effect easier with moodchips.

The idea I had for it was to replace Personafix chips since they were so addicting. Like I said he was an NPC and he didn't have the formula quite right so the whole run was about the side effects that made themselves apparent during the "live-fire" trials. Nothing like the gun-bunny realizing what the term anal leakage means mid fight.

The drug was in the early testing phases but since the doc didn't want to follow all those annoying FDA protocols he would just pay for human test subjects from the shadows. In the end it made for a good story.

As a general rule Johnson wants the runners know the least possible, so no he wants a copy and runners that don't stick their noses where they don't belong.



Dreckhead scientist of a crappy corp. What corp doesn't check the progress of a project and doesn't activates itself to increas productivity?



This IS some serious dreck hitting the fan, plausible settings and a quite hellish way to give birth (poor girl), than are the girl and child safe while the runners escape?

Not a bad idea players and GMs should think out of the box, what can the character do beside fulfilling his/her archetype?

I like grabbing random headlines for potential plot hooks. Not sure if this is the right thread though...

* Victorian QC arrested in child porn swoop
Basically an ex-QC (high ranking lawyer) was caught in the latest child porn bust here in AU. In a runner scenario, maybe runners were asked to plant evidence to incriminate someone. This lawyer may have a lot of past enemies/connections. Maybe they wanted to discredit him? Or maybe its the other way around? Runners are asked to clear his name? Maybe the runners were used to crack down the network.

* India Tells Pakistan to Crack Down on Militants
India and Pakistan are still going to be at each others throats even in 2070. The threat of M.A.D. is probably relatively low so they probably resort to small cross-border incursions and strikes. Maybe runners are involved in agitating the conflict between the two countries? Supplying weapons to the rebels of the region?

* Strikes and violence: Greece paralysed
As 10,000 people hit the streets to protest against the government, maybe under cover of the violence and anarchy crafty runners can exploit the situation?

* Calls for Governor to Quit in Scandal on Senate Seat
Ala. the current Governor of Illinois scandal. Easiest, most logical way is for 'runners helping to expose the scandal? Maybe this could be extended to Brackhaven's political bid for Governor? I'd love to see him taken down... heh.

- J.

While I understand this grievance, in a world where you hire an anonymous asset to shoot some-one in the face or steal their key datafiles, you'd assume that if some-one needs a chemical sample analyzed or an individual's soft parts poked with a laser scalpel, then there would be circumstances that you need an anonymous asset with a brain and qualifications in the necessary field.


Definately a plothole. To spin it in a slightly more convincing way, perhaps the scientist is working on a team, but he sure as hell deserves the grant more than that smug Dr. Richardson, so he decides to invest in his long-term career prospects and get a little more recognition for the project.


I suppose part of the deal would be that the runners extract the client, child and mother and deposit them in a safehouse.


Shadowrun is a game with a fairly wide range of skillsets and applications to complications, rather than archetypes. Sure, there are definately roles that need to be fulfilled, but Shadowrun allows for a fair amount of innovation, so a shadowrunner team that has a few specialities to set them apart from the crowd when Johnson's are sniffing around fixers for assets has to be a bonus.