So, I've posted a few times that I am starting off a shadowrun campaign soon, and many people will notice I am throwing up a lot of threads. That's because I have a lot of questions about GMing a successful Shadowrun campaign, and I want to get my ducks in a row and make sure it is the best campaign I can make it.

So, I like cinematic gaming. I know a lot of people don't, but I do. Like in videogames, you fight the final boss a few times before the final fight, and that makes you hate that guy just that much more. In RE:4, you see Sadler several times, and you hate the guy by the time you fight him. Same with a bunch of other games and movies. Now, as a GM, I don't want to do this too much, but doing it JUST enough makes players actually invested in taking out your guy, and it draws them even further into the story.

Problem is: this almost never works in RPGs. Players will kill off their big bads half the time with a lucky shot or an unexpected tactic. And I hate doing GM caveats that just say 'the bad guy escapes despite taking 20p.' Also, I hate it (and it pisses off players) when you make a character so stupidly overpowered that the PCs have no chance.

Players will shoot big bads in the middle of their speeches (had this happen.) Throw massive amounts of explosives at them (had this happen), or sometimes just get lucky. So, the questions are

A) Do you use Prime Runners?

B) If you do, how to you prevent either premature deaths or cheesy GM caveats?

Well, I think if the bad guy meets the PCs on several occasions before he really tries to kill them he must have made sure that is safety is guaranteed. Now how can his safetey be guaranteed? When he meets the PCs all alone he has to be stupidly overpowered, otherwise he must be a fool since he is obviously risking is life on every encounter. The other possibilty is that he is guarded by his bodyguards. Those shouldn't be that overpowered and they don't need to be, if you consider that they will defend the bad guy's life to their own death (something the PCs hopefully want to avoid happening to themselves). I personally do not like the combinition of the two possibilites. Why would the bad guy pay for bodyguards when he himself can easily manage to accomplish this job?

Ofc, there might be other ways to let the bad guys stay alive long enough for a final encounter and I'm curious to read about them :x

I certainly use Prime Runners. You can't have a Shadowrun game without them!

But as you say, Shadowrun doesn't lend itself to people taking a few rounds of having their hit points worn down while they give their Master Villain speech before they teleport away, like some other games.

There are two approaches I have taken. The first is the battle of wits with the PCs. Have the villain (or in my case it was a villainess) right there in their presence but without them realising until the end that she was the enemy of them. Not only did my PCs not realise she was their opponent, but one of them kept trying to chat her up. But this approach is difficult and nerve-wracking because you must give the players clues as to who she is so that when things are revealed they know that they could have worked it out if only they'd put two and two together. It certainly keeps you on your toes as a GM, though. Players are paranoid by nature so any NPC seems significant to them. You have to work them in carefully and make sure there are plenty of other NPC to allay suspicions. It's great fun though. Villains can eat babies, kick puppies and forget anniversaries, but few things make them seem as evil as direct, personal betrayal.

The other technique - much safer and more in line with what you're after - is to use some substitution. Have him taunt them by trid, over their commlinks, from a rigged drone, in the Matrix or via Astral Manifestation. He can just get away in time and leave a trid projector on the table. Just missing the BBEG can get the players going just as much as partially fighting him and then getting away would. If they don't know what he looks like, they can even be misled to target someone else.

Shadowrun doesn't really lend itself to monologuing villains, but it can be done. Be very careful that you're not frustrating your players with what they see as rail-roading, though. Your villain's escape routes need to be realistic.

EDIT: There are certain sorts of villains that can pull off what you want naturally. E.g. a Free Spirit (particularly of the possessing or inhabiting sort) can be "killed" and then come back again. And if it's an inhabitation spirit, it can even come back stronger. This alters your entire adventure design though. The PCs will need to find some way to permanently banish / bind it, or at least ruin its plans permanently.

The real answer is that you have to think about more than combat. What you really want is the players to have a relationship with the villian. In a video game where 100% of the player controlled actions of the PC is combat, combat is your only option. In table top you can create other situations where you can interact. Invent some scenario where combat is unexceptionable. This could be a highly controlled setting like an airport. It could also be a shadow function where starting a fight would cost the characters to much reputation, like a Mob wedding. Give the team a job doing security where it's there job not to start trouble. Another fun idea would be to have the villain find out where the characters are doing a meet, and show up claiming to be a team member. Then the PCs either have to play along or admit that they compromised a meet.

More generally surviving in shadow run isn't a matter of p track and armor; it's a matter of not getting shot at, and that's what you really need to set up. So what you have to do is make killing your villain cost to much in terms of reputation and retaliation.



[EDIT] Replying to Knasser's edit, an AI drone rigger could also sever in that capacity of psuedo kill able big bad, and a final confrontation could be something non-magical enough for the whole team to help with

1. Why shouldn't the boss man be hideously powerful?

2. You are GM. You know EVERYTHING about their characters, while they know nothing. Mod him out.

3. Make it so the players can't just shoot him. Either they are hideously outgunned by his bodyguards, they are in the middle of downtown Seattle at a coffee shop, or other place that they can't just shoot him (and they are dead if they do). Give him an excellent dodge check (and reaction score), and then have a sniper or two start covering fire with HMG while the villian escapes (or a couple of drone blimps doing the same, in an area with many commercial drones so the hacker can't just easily pinpoint and steal them.

4. Magic. Give him a bullet proof Armani suit, and have a pet mage (off site) sustaining an armor spell on him. Or have the pet mage be on a distant roof top with binoculars, and have him throw up a wall spell (in addition to the armor), and covering him with counterspelling. And of course have a spirit (with loaned services to the bad guy) sitting two steps to his right, two steps behind, in the Astral, ready to step in. (This way if they start something, the mage has other priorities than to doom spell the big bad guy.)

I second the Matrix or Drone idea. Also good are Holograms (have him approach at Dante's Inferno, just to have the PC's realize it's a hologram. Or don't have them realize it, and if they attack, they are out of the club forever.) Also good is the magic equivelant, using an Illusion spell from said distant rooftop (if the villian is a mage). This is also cool because they can assense the spell for his signiture, and later you can have them recognize him, while in an expensive Art Gallery, or something.

I'd actually caution the OP away from trying to tank out the villain. First, it's really hard to do in SR. Second, Putting stats on something just makes PC want to bring it that hard. If your players are any good it should be easy to get them the message that they aren't in a combat scene and you bring campaign altering/ending consequences down on them they do try it. And speaking personally I feel less cheating as player for not being able to kill someone because I meet them in a board room vs not being able to kill them because they fiat grade defensive buffs. Why do I think you need fiat grade defensive buffs? Because of dice. If the big bad has a shielding adept sustaining armor a they /should have no fear of a powerbolt. ButI wouldn't want to bet my campaign that overcasting + aid sorcory + edge + luck wouldn't be enough to overcome it

@WeaverMount: Very well put (both posts), exactly what I was attempting to say. Regarding the BBEG as a drone rigger - I really like this. I think I'll do it. I'm only trying decide whether or not when they finally track him down, they're going to arrive at a nice surburban house in Aubern where a 14 year old kid runs the whole lot from his bedroom. Or would that be too cruel?

Another way i have found from running other games is to have the players keep hearing a certain name, or encounter the BBEG's underlings without knowing that they are underlings at first. Haven't tried it in shadowrun yet, since i have yet to do any long-running stories, but it has worked so far in my other games, as the players start wondering who the hell this guy they keep hearing about is.
The other interesting method i have found is for the players to have an "ally" who is "helping" them by pointing out those who are supposedly the "bad" guys. It's only just begun to dawn on them they might have been working for the wrong side

In my game, I allow Prime Runners to burn Edge to escape certain death, just like PCs do...

For example, one bad guy appeared the first time, got gunned down. The next time he appeared, he had a cyberarm because he lost the arm he was born with in the gunfight. Then when he got taken down again (via a grenade), he came back with two cyberlegs. Next time I use him I think he might be either a cyborg or a cyberzombie.

In the campaign I recently started I've got a number of Prime Runner types prepared. One is a second group of local runners that the PCs are going to start interacting with. Sometimes they'll be working for similar causes, other times competing for the same work, and at other times I expect them to be in direct conflict with each other. Of course, these are reoccurring NPCs built to be comparable to the PCs, but aren't the big baddie style of a Prime Runner.

For big scary Prime Runners one thing I'm doing is using the PCs backgrounds. You don't need to monologue the first time someone shows up from one of the character's past. Hell, the other PCs might not know whats going on at the moment, but you can bet that when the dust settles there will be an explanation from the PC. There is no better way to 'monologue' than to have one PC fess up about something and let the others all figure out what happened from there. Smarter villains don't stop to monologue anyway.

Finally, this is Shadowrun. Sometimes instead of one NPC that is their adversary, remember to use things like one Megacorp. I'm very interested to see what my PCs decide to do once they learn how their different actions and runs have been connected; and more specifically for what purpose. Realizing what your actions have caused and deciding to either 'live with it' and be used, or 'do something about it' and be used but vengeful is something I love in Shadowrun. Every once in a while I like the PCs to feel powerless and used; its an element of Shadowrun thats key in my opinion. The trick is to see how the PCs respond after that, so that the players can take the negative and turn it into something even more fun.

I used Prime Runners in my games to act as Blood Magi/Toxic Shaman for the Institute of Magical Research's outstanding 1,000,000 bounty on said confirmed Awakened. These included:

Troll Drake Adept with Sacrifice and Power Bleed who had maxed physical stats, taken Immune (Toxins) from a devil rat, Improved Sense (Sonar) from a barghest, and Regeneration from a Vampire (and had a natural magic score of 7 or 8 I think). He was dropped 3 times in 2 CT and stayed down when the mage put him into Damage Overflow (and kept him there for a couple days).

NAN Abomination-summoning Toxic Shaman who was dropped like a sack of genetically-modified potatoes by a Slab capsule round, but whos Invoked force 8 (IIRC) Abomination spirit almost killed the two (!) runners who decided to solo him. They wiped the floor with the other force 4 and force 6 spirits, but that Invoked nearly got them.

Ork Radiation mage in a run-down Children's Hospital in Chicago (who's nuclear core was leaking). He worked with posession-based Toxic Shamanism, and the force 6 Radiation Elemental wasn't anything special, and he himself wasn't special, but together he was kinda scary. Add onto that the fact that he was on backround count with the Taint metamagic, and the party had freaking nothing on him. And he had an undisclosed amount of force 4 free Radiation Elementals posessing barghests. The group came up to him to pwn him like normal, were able to talk him out of the hospital (one of the players is a mini-pr0nomancer) - but not out of the backround count. They were talking to him, and about to walk off and be like "We're sorry, we're leaving now." Well, the sniper was posted a good 800 meters away, locked on doing his thing, and said "If the mage does anything threatening, I shoot him" (more freaking Slab Capsules). The Ork Rad-mage was like "I'f you're gunna leave, then leave" and as he said that cast a spell similar to Orgy on the 3 people talking to him, making them collapse on the floor.

Sniper goes "I shoot."

Slab capsule took out the body, but not the spirit. Spirit nails sniper with Mana Bind, dropping his agi 3 points (IIRC). Sniper runs off, 3 party members got captured. The sniper got away (having the spell sustained for about 3 days) with the rigger, and went and hired 2 ork/troll gang members from the Troggs they had befriended earlier (so the captured members could still play) to go break their friends out.

The rigger ended up losing 4 drones, one of the party members had nearly-terminal cancer, one had open sores and shakes, and one (the mage) went blind from radiation exposure.

They left Mr. Rad-mage and haven't gone back.

I have done this before . . . and I have had problems with my players. Exchange went like this:

GM: You are in a crowded club, you see (Evil guy) across the room at a corner table, beconing to you.

PC: I shoot him.

GM: Perhaps I wasn't clear, this is a very crowded club with many, many witnesses, and several people with the ability to call the cops at a moments notice.

PC: No, you were clear, I shoot him.

GM: You realize you are going to go to jail, and he probably has friends in the crowd.

PC: I am banking that I can outrun the cops and lay low. No one knows who I am here. Plus, I really really really hate the guy.

What am I supposed to do? While the cops COULD show up and arrest him (and, they should), this wouldn't be terribly fun for the player, as he would basically be forced to make a new character. Or, on the outside chance that he DOES outrun the cops, then he has gotten away Scott free. I would like to punish my players for stupid actions, but I never want to simply just take my player's characters away from them.

Right there is when you meta game. Your fun is important too. Tell the player out right that it will ruin your suspension of disbelief if such an action doesn't have consequences. Dealing with those consequences will not be enjoyable for the table, or conducive for the story. If player thinks its ok to mess with other peoples fun because it's "in character" as a good GM you /should/ take action take that character out of play.

I think you really need to judge how likely it is that the players will pull a stunt like that. IE how much do they hate that guy?
For example i wouldn't expect a player to walk up and chat to the guy that killed his kids/tortured him/shot at him recently and not feel some sort of compulsion to blow his brains out. Sometimes i make players make composure checks if they DON'T try and do that to suitably evil bastards . However they might give a bit of leeway if they know the guy has acted in their favour at some point, whether it be calling off the goon squad, apologising/explaining (from a safe distance) or simply paying them gobs of cash the players tend to be more willing to treat them in a non lethal fashion. Tranq's, an unmarked van and a suitably desolate place for more intimate questioning count as more acceptable behaviour in that situation if you ask me

Given the state of Medical/Augmentation Science, let them kill the BBEG.
It was just a clone...

Or with the use of a little magic, it was a Mage using magic to impersonate the BBEG.

The PCs will have to ask themselves, did we really kill him? Or was it a dupe?

Yes I use Prime runners.

Very well. Thanks for asking.

The reply could go something like this:

"Since he was beckoning to you, the moment you reach for the gun he grabs the mom that is taking her kid to the bathroom and uses her as a human shield. However, the crowd fails to notice this as someone spots your gun and screams causing mayhem to break out. You lose sight of your target in the chaos; losing your opportunity. Perhaps next time you should be more subtle. You can bet that Lone Star will be here shortly, what do you do?"

If the player insists on going on a killing spree simply make sure that the target is never found, or keeps getting away. Have the PC shoot innocent victims, then take the character away when he gets arrested; or simply gun him down. There is a point when you've given a guy plenty of warnings that his actions are over the top and will have repercussions. Its possible that the PC might try a couple of shots before making a get away. If you aren't willing to take the PC away but wish to have other consequences consider a world in which the PC's image is being broadcast on the news as a killer (or even burglar if the PC never shoots). Now the PC is being actively pursued by the cops, won't be terribly safe in public, and will probably have a hard time with certain contacts that don't like dealing with that much attention. Shadowrun is often a game of consequences, just because a character gets away from the authorities after committing an atrocity, doesn't mean there won't be consequences.

Don't have the character arrested. Instead, have them contacted by the FBI with the surveillance tapes and blackmailed into rolling over on their employers time after time -- have them as a deep-cover mole against a syndicate or something.

I did that last week.

The group I'm running (Co-DM'ing. I have a character, he has a character. When I run he plays, I NPC my guy [tagalong], when he runs we switch) did a run on an Evo old folk's home to kidnap as many age 70+ people for undisclosed reasons. They don't have a hacker, but someone has a 5/6 technomancer contact. So he calls him up and is all like "gimme a sprite, yo." A few hours later, a rating 6 Crack sprite shows up, owing him 4 services.

They use 1 service to hack the facility and get a layout: # of people, # of people age 70+ (20), # of guards; the usual. They buy another van (it was either that or see if they could get an 18-wheeler in the area without notice) and have the mage Imp Invis/silence both vans. All geared up now, they head over (sniper takes roost 800 meters away on the top of a parking garage in his chameleon suit). They use another service from the sprite to rerout the HTR from the company, and another (leaving 1) to open up the gate, making it look like a malfunction, as two invis/silent vans drive through the now-open gate.

This is where things start getting a little hazy...

The rigger goes "I activate 11 drones (dobermans with Fichetti Secure 600/S-n-S rounds) under one subscription and send them out." As soon as he gets into position with them (still unnoticed...), the sniper Slab Capsules a different guard.

The rigger says "I order my drones to shoot at that guard." (meaning the one at the other gate).

I go "Are you sure?"

He goes "Yes. I order my drones to shoot one round at the other guard."

"Ok..." 11 Stick-and-Shock rounds (1 fired from each of the 11 drones) fly out and deal 99S(E) damage to the poor mook. It goes downhill quickly from here.

The infiltration specialist breaks the code for the backdoor (near a reecieving dock door, where the vans are located to easily grab people) while the adept Face/melee combat character goes around and nails the front door with his sonic fist (backdoor perfectly bypassed, front door perfectly demolished). It takes the infiltration guy a few CTs to break the code, and the combat mage is waiting impatiently.

As he finally gets the code and walks through, the combat mage goes "This is taking too long. I Force 10 Powerball the recieving door."
Ka-boom, the infiltration spec (who has survived being in a F12 Manaball, and with a different guy [merc hired to rescue his captured character] survived a car crash that resulted from a Powerbolt from the same guy) was only 1 meter out of the radius. The mage is now like "Hey, I got the recieving dock door open!"

Well, the sniper notices a Lone Star beatcop doing rounds. The 'Star notices the gunshots and loud explosion, looking over at the mound of dust rising from the Evo old folk's home. The sniper also notices him not really caring (I remind them of Extraterritoriality), but sees him lean over to his radio for a few.

Inside, the face is able to convince old people that they're going on a field trip, and they start heading with him. My guy (Nosferatu mage/melee combat) gets jumped by a guard who's trying to stun baton him, so he sword focus' him. In the face.

We end up getting all but 2 of the old people out (by this time there's 5 'Star in 3 police cars waiting patiently outside for our crime to move onto their turf, and the sniper is starting to like the idea of shooting them), the combat mage is burning the tags found in them and on their clothes, HTR is still nowhere near us, and the last 2 are on life support.

So the face gets the idea to go and talk to the holistic mage on site (mystic adept with like that massage thing, heal, and detox). As he's trying to convince her to come out, a guard snuck up on him and was like "Freeze!", pointing a machine pistol at him. He puts up his hands, and gets like 5+ successes in convincing the guard to "lower the weapon because I'm not going to resist." as soon as he does, Mr. Combat Face snaps his neck with his Falcon-PUUNCH!

They end up realizing that they have no room for the life support equip on their vans, so my guy (Nosferatu with Carrier [Ghoul] among others) heads over there. I was originally going to cut their throats with his weapon/power focus, but instead I took off my helmet and kissed them both on the forehead (infecting them with the ghoul virus). Then I swiss-cheesed the holistic mage's mind and kidnapped her too.

On the way out, we also nabbed a dead guard (I had a small army of ghouls) and a knocked out guard to turn. We knew about the 'Star waiting for us outside, and were trying to figure out what to do. So the Combat Face calls up Mr. Sprite to use his last service. He says "Go do something to get the 'Star off us."

Pipp (the sprite) goes "Do you want me to kill them?" He's described as all anime-like, and his eyes narrow down. The Face is like "No! Don't kill them!" Pipp's eyes get all big and watery and he says "Good, because I'm afraid of GOD.." (I had to remind them of the Grid Overwatch Division).

Anyways, Pipp dissapears (last service used, he's off to do that), and a minute later they hear this whistling, soaring sound, then see an air taxi 'copter weaving drunkenly through the air and crash into a crowded mall. The 'Star are off to help calm that down (they later find out noone is on board, and the exact place it crashed had noone near it - some sort of miracle or something), and the group makes their escape.

They end up kidnapping 20 people from a Mega-owned Old Folk's Home, killing 7 (4 guards, the 2 infected with the ghoul virus were killed later, but not before they killed 1 of the 'cleanup' crew), and causing massive amounts of property damage. All on camera.

A couple weeks later, they get and complete another 'run, and then they pay rent and start relaxing. Then they're hit at their communal home by a Tir Ghost squad armed with Slab Capsules. They wake up with a suit telling them how much damage they did and how lucky they are he found them first. He then takes a blood sample from everyone, telling them that half the sample will be used to force-grow some clonal body parts that'll be put in a vehicle, 'chased' by one of his teams, and destroyed, giving the Evo company the bodies that the group's crimes require. The rest is going into his personal vault to be used as leverage. The mage later tells the group (they're all gagged) that he means to use the blood samples as ritual spellcasting tools to either kill or let us know what he wants to do.

Yeah iv used them a couple of times, actually go for a 300pt build for them when its a team usually. Individuals are adifferentmatter.

The first one was just to noise up the team because someone had taken a 25 pt enemy, he spots the primerunner in the club and legs it so instead the primerunner warns the team to back off, that guy has some dangerous enemies etc. I knew they would gun him down, so I had him cast trid phantasm of himself walk over and start talking, his lack of reaction when plugged weirded them out.

The target? He stepped outside right into the gangertroll contracted to give him a beatdown ,it amused me.

wait, the 25pt Enemy warned the runners about something? I would have thought an enemy that bad would have been happy to let them walk into some sort of devilish trap (providing he could gloat of course )

I have had enemies warn PCs about something....because they wanted the honour of killing the PCs themselves. Or because it was part of their plan: they knew the PCs would not trust them, and so go rushing to their doom by going "Ah-ha! Bad Guy doesn't want us to go there! He must be hiding something!" Amazing how often PCs adn players fall for that...Worse is when the players figure oput that is what you were doing, and, next time, they follow your advice, and go straight into the trap you set for them...(of course, you actually had the trap set even if they HAD decided to follow your advice the first time...)

I do.



I don't. Any NPC the Runners can shoot can die. "Bosses" are the ones who hire the prime runners.

Stage your battles somewhere that the body can fall/get swept away/get buried under rubble etc.. Throw in a scenario that forces the players to flee without searching for the body and you've got the perfect scenario to bring back the villain (with his new cyber-arm and eye patch) a few adventures later.

And when they say "What the...? How did he escape?"

Smile evilly and say "Now THAT is an excellent question!"

As for the "I shoot him in the crowded bar!" I just make it VERY clear what the consequences are.

"If you shoot him, most likely either his guards will take you and your entire team out, or the cops will be all over you and you will go to jail. I won't save you. You are betting your character's life on this move - make sure this is what you want to do."

If the player still does it, so be it. They knew the risks. If they STILL won't budge, don't forget to add:

"And all your teammates will be tagged as accessories."

Unless the ENTIRE team is suicidal, I bet they will intervene FOR you.

Also consider carefully if your players have fun with such "returning villains". There's a very fine line between hating them, and hating the game.

Don't forget one of the best weapons you have in your arsenal as GM: cheating.

Sometimes that means fudging dice rolls, but I wouldn't recommend doing that too often or the players will catch on. No, the cheating I mean is the fact that you don't need to declare the actions your bad-guy NPCs are taking, but your players have to declare to you. In this manner you can make it seem like that bad guy NPC is always one step ahead of them. You can really frustrate your players and build dramatic tension by always having your villain "just leaving" from the place where the players are going to investigate for vital clues, or that key Contact or NPC that they just talked to and set up a meeting is dead when they show up and the villain leaves behind their calling card.

However, as has been said, there is a fine line between building tension and having the players hate the NPC, and having them get frustrated and hate the game.

Echo that. I seem to be able to walk that line fairly easily though.

Prime runners are key to a good game. What is an RPG without a super villian to antagonize the PC's? For my Prime Runners they always roll with back up. The invisible mage with a handy Mana Ball, a drone rigger with a few H.E.R. for a payload in a lighter than air vehicle and the numerous drug addicted gangers who will do just about anything for their chip fix, even if it means dying a terrible death at the hands of my players.
My latest was a Yak boss who had hired a Humanis/Ganger/Rigger to protect his drug lab and hot blocks from the competition, My PC's. The Rigger harrassed my PC's to no end. When the PC's finally cornered the Yak boss he got away just barely. Then the Yak boss headed over to his hired Rigger with the PC's hot on his tail. Next thing you know the PC Hacker picks up the Yak bosses comms signal headed out the back door so the team moves to intercept. Easy, find the signal and blast the baddie. Not quite. It turns out the Yak boss said to his hired Rigger "You failed in protecting me so here take my comm, take my coat and hat and go outside you drek eating worm!!" If the PC's weren't so paranoid they may have fallen for it but the parties face went and did a double take on the body druing the clean up fire fight and saw that it was not their target. The Yak boss was beaten in the end but it was a lot of fun playing up the evil Yak boss who knew the rigger would be killed. It also keeps my players on their toes and keeps up the level of paranoia and always has them questioning " Did we really get the Bad Guy?"
Drones, Holograms, Illusions, situations where gun play is bad news and yes the Boss who hires Prime Runners to do thier dirty work are all great ways to keep the Bad Guy alive. But sometimes fair is fair and when good planning and a little edge traps your main super villain then as GM's we have to let the PC"s get one or two victories under their belts. After all we have all the World, the Triple A's and their billions of Yen and that little something that sets us apart from the PC's...We are The Game Masters.

I thought that's what the Megas were...

That aside, Prime Runners give perfect faces to the much more fluid and ambiguous "evil" of the AAAs. Like (in my above description) the suit who took blood samples from my group in order to give them orders through Ritual Spellcasting (Dream spell). I need to go stat him up...

So I am preparing a prime runner for my group (whenever it gets off the ground. . . .) and I have decided a course of action. The Gianelli family will hire the runners for a few runs, and the runners will basically become the 'go to' guys for a Gianelli mid-level gangster named 'Skinny Al.' Skinny Al is a Biosam, but plays it cool and pretends to be just another mid-level Johnson. Eventually, he will backstab the group, when he makes a move against the O'Maley's and sets the runners up for the blame. Because he contacted the group directly, and because no one knows about the meet, he gets away without anyone knowing it was he who set them up ("Someone else must've hired those runners to run against the O'Maleys, but they botched the job!) Of course, when the runners survive the encounter . . .

There are a couple episodes of the Saturday morning animated Tick series that you might want to watch as reference.

One of my PCs took the enemy quality in the last game, and wanted a nemesis.

Enter Fineas Dillian, a former runner and AA Johnson (roughly 500 BP) He suffered a psychotic break and asked the PC to kill his wife, and the guy she was having an affair with. The PC does so, and when Fineas returns to reality he finds that his wife and brother are dead and that the PC had the audacity to pose them as if they'd been having sex. Fineas then quits the AA, and uses his connections and favors to hunt the PC down.

First encounter - Fineas hires a couple troll adepts to ambush the PC. They ram his car and the team reacts swiftly, neutralizing the threat.

Second encounter - Fineas himself ambushes the PC in a Yellowjacket while they're on the way to meet a Johnson. An airburst grenade detonates directly over the PC's car, and the chunky salsa rule puts him into damage overflow. The free spirit PC manages to clock Fineas with a DC spell and the chopper disengages. The PC is stabilized and healed by a street doc over the next week, but ends up with numerous disgusting scars and damaged cyberware.

Third encounter - Fineas does legwork and manages to get the object with the free spirit's real name on it. He hires a couple members of the team independently to do this, through two separate Johnsons. He now has leverage over the free spirit.

Fourth encounter - The PC calls Fineas up and taunts him while drunk in the team's bar. Fineas shows up in a rage and the PC (rolling roughly 20 dice for pistols) uses edge and nearly one shots Fineas through light military armor. I save him with the Hand of God, and as he's driving away the drunk sasquatch bartender PC gives chase and wrecks his motorcycle.

Final encounter - Fineas ambushes the PC in the hangar of an abandoned rural airport being used by the Ghost Cartels. He used the last of his resources to get healed, grab some heavy augmented military armor, and a laser. He gets the drop on the PC and manages to take his pistol hand off at the forearm. They get into a fight, Fineas pins the PC to the ground and starts to crush his throat. With the PC's consent, the AI PC rams an Ares Citymaster through the hangar wall, a helicopter frame, and then runs Fineas over at full speed while the PC does his best to stay low and avoid the tires. Fineas is turned to jelly inside his heavy military armor, and thus the Prime Runner ends.

That's a good distinction. It seems like most of my "Big Bad Villans" are either powerful and insane (insect shamans, toxic shamans, etc.) or smart and connected. The bad guys never go for the monologue or the face-to-face encounter unless they're insane (and usually not even then). Instead, they accomplish their goals through proxies. I could probably beat the crap out of Bill Gates in a one-on-one fistfight, but that would never happen. If he wanted me to suffer he'd pull a few strings and suddenly my bank accounts would be empty and my home foreclosed on due to a 'clerical error'. My wife, boss, friends, and neighbors would get convincingly-manufactured pictures of me doing unnatural things to farm animals. The police would find evidence that implicated me in the recent string of homicides. My brakes would suddenly fail on the freeway. I'd never be able to trace it back to him, or lash out at him directly, even if I knew it was him doing it. Even if he called me periodically to taunt me with foreshadowing on what he was going to do next.

The crazy toxics, on the other hand, are usally just fun one-shot adventures that don't last past the first encounter.

Yes.



I don't. I have an infinite supply of opponents. The ones that survive the encounter with the PCs and come back become the long running opponents. I don't need a specific opponent to survive.

If I really have a lot of work vested in a background material for a plot, then it's easy enough to match the plot material and hook it into the Prime Runner that survives.

Toss opponents 1 through 10 at PCs, the one that survives is now found out to be the great El Muerte who has been inciting gang warfare in the teams hood and causing them all kinds of grief!

Frankly the players and PCs can't possibly know about the "prime runner" except by the fact he/she survives to come back to haunt them.

There's nothing like creating drama for the players by them finding out nameless grunt #6 at that job last week is coming after them and was actually the favorite daughter of a clan of Irish LS executives. Or that the Big Name guy they spent all that time worrying about is actually a wimp and easily dispatched without consequences because everyone secretly hated him and wanted him dead.

Anytime I stat up an NPC, I have to assume they can be defeated / killed, so I if I want them to be scary, I use reputation. Generally a Prime Runner type will have survived a long time to get so feared / respected. They will have people that will work for them, need them, or usually hire them. The runners should know (provided they do their homework first) what might happen if they rub out the "villain". Who's going to be happy? Who's going to be pissed? Also, I set a tone in my game that failure doesn't always equal death. If the big bad nasty kills one or all of your characters in an encounter, than you better believe they'll want vengeance. If the baddie sees some value in keeping them alive, the players might just return the favor when the tables are turned. Particularly blood thirsty players end up getting a taste of their own medicine. Vinnie the treacherous Mob Boss gets whacked by pulling a fast one on the wrong runners and those runners may find out that that Vinnie was the Don's favorite nephew, and now have price tags on their heads Plus they are wanted for murder by the Star (eager to get an arrest after the generous donation to the widow and orphans fund by the Don on his nephew's behalf.) Super Goon is dead, but now the real challenge begins. Getting away with it. After a fubar like that, they won't be so trigger happy again. They instead might want to get him in other ways. Planting evidence against him as a plotter against the Don, etc. In the end they may come up with a Count of Monte Cristo esque plot of vengeance that culminates in an epic final showdown that if done right, could be sanctioned by the Don.

I've used Prime Runners to good effect in the past. Keeping them alive can be a challenge, but it's also a challenge to know when to let them die, or keep them dead. I was in a game once where the GM not only had the same Prime Runner come back a few times from the dead, but had another NPC step into his place like a copy cat. Not once, but twice. It was fairly obvious that the GM loved the Prime Runner...

Neraph, there is no such thing as "just" a Rad (toxic) Mage. They are one of the things that genuinely scares my spirit/mage hunter character. (Though he does take anti-radiation pills before hand, so it's normally fairly ok, so long as things go as planned...)



That one is the ticket.




While I do use this one (it's a classic), I've found little else annoys the Players as much. They always assume I'm cheating, and when the plot arc finishes up and I explain the mechanic, they inevitably turn smiley as soon as they figured out how I did it. (*grumble* damned if do, damned if don't...)

Burn Notice. Excellent show, completely relevant to this thread.

My players know the Rule:

If you do not see the body, they are not dead.


What is fun is when they ARE dead, the players think they are alive, and so are including the liklihood of the Bad Guys return into their plans. *cackles evilly!*

Thanks for all the input. One last question. As the OP, can I get someone to comment on my idea for a prime runner? I know that my players will have to kill him at one point, but I am thinking about using AR meets and other things to have contact without him dying so they can work up a good lather of hate.

Our rule was "unless their brains have been splattered over the ground/wall by a few bullets, they are not dead"

Sounds like a pretty good idea for a Prime Runner. Being a gangster, he can always be "avenged" by the other gangsters, or have it turn out that he was not really the mastermind behind it all, and that the real Prime Runner is his boss...

I dont' use the RAW "prime runners", because I handle NPCs on the fly without a clear cut between unnamed NPCs and major PCs. I love them all, I know them by their name (even the unnamed ones) and they all share the same importance in my eye. But I do have NPCs who'll oppose a greater threat to the PC than most other NPCs.
Most of them are actually just people who can't fight at all (or at least not as well as the PCs), but they just have the power or the manipulation abilities needed to hold the PCs by the balls and sometimes they're just so good that the PC will like it.
The PCs won't be able to do kill them easily because they just don't want to (they either like the guy, or hate him but don't have any reason for killing him, or they need to keep him alive), because they never see them, or when they do they're in no position to fight (in jail, in a bar before a run when they just can't afford to take risks) or because if they did, they just wouldn't survive long (killing the city's favorite personality everyone loves isn't the smartest move)

Then there are fighting NPCs. Some of them might be "major NPCs" (NPCs I've detailed, who regularly post in the campaign's BBS), but as soon as they can enter a fighting scene with the PCs, I know they can die. But to be fair, they can also kill the PCs. I won't do more to save the NPC than what I'll do to save PCs... and I'm not the kind of GM who cheats to save PCs. Hopefully for the NPCs, it's pretty hard to kill someone dead in Shadowrun. So if the PC don't make sure they're dead, chances are their overflow monitor isn't filled and they'll be able to return someday. But even then, I don't count on it.

Anyway I know that, as a player, I really hate it when it's clear the NPC is supposed to get away and will do so no matter what you do to prevent that: I'm not here to watch a movie, I'm here to play a game! I want my action to have consequences!

And not even then...

Never give the villian that is meant to survive a metabolic arrester, it is signing their death warrent. Fate does not like that piece of bioware.

Also remember, Runners Companion has lots of options that can be used for a Prime Runner enemy type. Some things that might be 'too expensive' to be really playable are not so restrictive to enemies.

As an example, I'm building a Superior primer runner at 150% of the PCs. This means that my 600 bp build can afford to be a Nosferatu Magician (which ties right into the background of one of my players). Regeneration from the Nosferatu should help it survive long enough to escape after the first conflict. If not I figure I've either not used the NPC to the best of its abilities, or the PCs handled things EXTREMELY well.

As a mage don't forget that Combat Sense and Deflection > Armor.

Also, don't forget a combo of Clairaudience/Clairvoyance/Trid Phantasm = The Enemy's there (but not really).