Okay, so I don't want to spoil the movie for anyone. But I couldn't help but think of just sprinkling a little SR 2070 over this movie and how cool it could be. Main character is easily a retired Shadowrunner, his friends the same. He uses lots of things in his legwork and then kicks in some doors and hefty amounts of ass. One could easily take a lot of elements from the movie and adapt them to SR, hell if your players didn't see it it's a plot and everything damn near gift wrapped. What I'm curious about is the travel aspect.

So yes, the point of the post, how often are characters taken overseas to do a run? How well does it turn out? I'm planning a new game and I'm pondering some travel to spice things up for the veteran players and show off the world to the newbs. I'd like to hear some fresh experiences.

with me quite often in that campine im running but as they are ow professonal mercs i dont think it counts. In the games I play once in a blue moon/never how ever thee have always been rather epic runs that stick in your mind for ages to come.

I think of overseas jobs as something that only high profile runs require, and hence shouldn't be offered until there's a bit of street cred under the team's belts. There's a few factors to consider:
-Why? What reason does the johnson have for importing non-local talent, rather than hiring local talent? In cities like Denver, Seattle, Hong Kong, and other runner havens, there'd need to be a pretty decent rationale for why the johnson doesn't just pick from the local stable. Runs in secluded areas make sense, in particular mercenary style operations outside of the cities. Also in third world areas like those detailed in Feral Cities.

An idea I like for foreign running is actually in LA. P2.0 is fine and all, different strokes for different folks. But a Johnson might have a run that needs to be kept clandestine, out of the attention of the media, and I can see a LA johnson hiring foreign talent who avoid P2.0 like the plague for an operation.

How? Transportation becomes a big factor in overseas running. Either long-distance smugglers need to be contacted to transport the runners, or fake SINs need to up to a very high standard to withstand customs, especially in paranoid exclusionist countries like the Tirs and the UK. Another option is for the Johnson to pull some strings and have the runners transported as part of the deal. This would especially work for AA/AAA corporate/government Johnsons who have access to extraterritorial transportation rights/diplomatic packages.

What? Equipment is a big part of this. How are the runners going to get their expensive illegal gear across borders? As mentioned above, smugglers and transports with extra-territorial/diplomatic immunity are a solution here. Another more challenging factor is getting the necessary gear from foreign dealers. This could be easy in mercenary/runner/smuggler havens like Seattle, Hong Kong, Cairo, Istanbul, Europort, New Orleans, etc. or very hard in the Tirs, the UK, Manhattan etc.

When? Time is a big factor in foreign runs. It's not a problem if there's a wide timeframe within which the run can be completed, but if it's shorter, like a week, then timeframes become harder, because in addition to planning and executing the run, you need to be able to get to the location on time.

Where? As you can see from the above factors, the location and it's individual characteristics play a huge part in the circumstances and difficulty level of the run.

Taken doesn't really factor in all the complexities that shadowrunners face. Liam Neeson's character, while being a capable drive-some-one's-face-into-nearby-hard thing guy, isn't full of illegal cyberware, and he goes overseas with pretty much no equipment.

My game is based in Seattle but I've had my players travel to Athabaska, L.A., and Hong Kong. To maintain some sense of plausibility I don't start the adventure in the other locales but rather have them travel to it as part of what they were hired for (example: deliver a medallion from a 9x9 operative in Seattle to his cell leader in Hong Kong, etc.).

Unless it's part of the game, don't make it ridiculously difficult for the players to get from point A to point B. I typically have the Johnson arrange for travel visas, airline tickets, and in-country contacts to supply gear and basic information. My players are smart enough to find a street doc who can "doctor up" (ha!) a medical voucher permitting illegal but non-weapon cyberware to pass through airport security. "The wired reflexes are for a degenerative motor disease. Honest!"

It's usually turned out well. As long as your players can survive an adventure without a web of local contacts for support they should be fine.

The one main reason I can think of is deniability. Having a team come in, do the job and then leave straight afterwards makes tracking them - and via them the Johnson - that much more difficult. Now granted infiltration and exfiltration of the region are going to be your two biggest weak points but if you can handle that and not leave any evidence at the scene of the crime then the pool of possible suspects increases enormously for whoever might be looking for you since now they've got a much larger group of possible suspects rather than just local runners.

In the words of the IDF in the 60's: Join the army, see the pyramids! Or the USMC version: Travel to far off lands, meet interesting new people and kill'em.

This Sunday our characters are off to Seoul and I was up until 2AM reading Shadows of Asia getting a feeling of what Korea is like in 2070.

I think that the nice thing with going to far off lands is not high-profile (I was in a group of investigators using a call of Cthulhu where we travelled the Orient Express in the relative ignomious luxury of coach. It was like interrailing, but with unspeakable horrors in the toilet and not just on roofs); instead you can divest the group of all those powerful weapons that they have and all their all important contacts. When our group travelled to Boston, the mage we had recently hired tried to smuggle a heavy foci on board and of course he gets stopped by customs. Despite being Dan super mage, it was the equivalent of trying to board with 10 pounds of plastique under your arm. Luckily security is much more loose and the GM deciding not to kill the character within 10 minutes of starting the game, he finally did board.

So, yes it is fun. Second it means that the PCs are out of their comfort zone. Third you can monkey wrench their lives to no end, both as a player and GM.

Case and point, in Lagos you pay the local militia. Then the local militia come back and say you need to pay another tax, then they offer to protect your car. If you decide not to get their protection the car will certainly be a) smashed or b) stolen. All the fun kinds of things that can happen on your travels off the tourist routes.

Our current game is about a Russian Corporation's hostile takeover of a major Polish port city while the characters, who run a PSC, were running a training there. Seems ol' Ivan was upset that the Poles didn't have their heads up they butts and started making all of this scrilla without sharing like good little ex-commies.

Now it's our job to make sure that The Great Bear never makes a cent on the deal... *evil chuckle*