Okay. So I've read the cyberpirates book and think the whole setting in the caribbean is awesome. I'd like to run a pirates game where the team is trying to carve a niche out for themselves and the whole be your own boss bit.

Here's the problem. I don't want to end the current campaign and characters and start over. The team I run for has done a few smuggling jobs and found them to be pretty lucrative, and entertaining. They even have a boat (which they used for a smuggling run into CalFree). I've got an idea for a smuggling run that gets them into the area, but how do I convince them to stay and be pirates?

Being wanted in most of the territories that separte them and home is a good start usually. (Whether they did the crime in question is another story)

Well, people relocate for either money or sex. So either screw all your players, or give their characters a couple easy pirate missions.
Also, if you can get one of the team killed, and replace him with a "local" that makes it a lot easier, cause the team will then have some contacts in the area.

I'd take it out-of-character, and tell them you'd like the next part of the campaign to be cyber-pirates. Let them roleplay wanting to become pirates (and if they do well sprinkle some karma around). Someting like having them meet a pirate crew that just made a big haul and is partying like crazy. A lot of shadowrunners (mine at least) tend to dig that sort of thing.

In any case, no reason to go underhanded with it. If the players aren't on board (pardon the pun) it may get a little weird, because Cyberpirates is supposed to step around the GM-decides-the-course-of-events model.

And if you really want them to be pirates and they refuse... getting shanghai'd w/ brain bombs should be enough to make them work on a crew for awhile

It might help if you have them watch Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl first. If anything got me in the mood to give Cyberpirates a try it was watching Captain Jack Sparrow do his thing in that movie.

They have a boat? Pirate attack! Surely a group of land-lubber shadowrunners won't expect the other pirate's scuba-elf with the underwater demolitions, right?

When your boat is sinking, you have very little bargaining power. Heck, if they try to fight it out, blow up the damn boat, give them all a serious wound, and have them floating in the water. Do they still want to fight? If you don't pull any punches, they'll almost certainly die (Which they should, if only as a lesson to respect the fact that sometimes you're beat)

They've done smuggling before, so... set up a series of smuggling situations for them to first cross North America. If your games follow (relatively) the RL time of year, then they're going to be praying for somewhere warm right now anyway, and especially once you've got them halfway to Minneapolis-St. Paul and they're already praying because their ride may or may not get them across Middle of Nowhere, Athabasca; unless they go through Sioux, which presents its own unique challenges as well as being colder than fuck. Emphasize how much better the Carib is this time of year: the sun, rum, girls (or boys. YMMV), etc. are being mentioned on the radio/trid/etc. The Spring Break specials are going to be starting soon and the promos are running every 30 seconds, and so on. Once they get to Minneapolis, send them down to St. Louis, and then... hehehe... New Orleans.

By the time they get to NOLA, they probably don't want to ever go back (Hell, I wouldn't, and I live in a warm climate). Make the natural progression to some short-range smuggling, maybe a mission or two out past Borinquen. I am planning on starting a cyberpirate campaign myself (starring mfb) where the first mission is from the Caymans to transport "something" from New Orleans. Well, have them sent after an equivalent character, and succeed. If they don't screw up, they should now have something valuable and other pirates are going to be going after them. But, once they get a taste of life... entice them. Sex, drugs, and money are significant motivators for anyone, but for a bunch of cybered up PCs (especially if you have a rigger, then he's God) in a mostly cyber-free piracy market. They could be Kings.

Dropping them into the Carib is no fun, and makes it seem all the more fleeting. However, the more it seems like a journey (or escape) to someplace really swank, the more likely it should be to be accepted and enjoyed. I'd slowly send them southeast using the above method (or one like it), and you get all sorts of adventures in other cities and incentives for them to get the F out of dodge.

You could also give them some sort of "good thing" that they cannot take with them if they leave the carribean.

Maybe just a really good contact that brings them up a notch on the pay scale, but only works down there.

Maybe another boat, or something, that they can't easily bring back wherever they were.

I also really like the idea of more or less banishing them from wherever they were. Arrange to have them cross, or be crossed by, someone powerful on thier way out.

They've got a rigger and are cybered and have a none too shabby shaman, that's why I thought they'd actually have a chance to make a real name for themselves down there instead of cowering in the shadows of Seattle all the time.

Good point on playing up the niceties of living in the caribbean.

Scuba elves taking out their boat...that could work as long as the rigger doesn't notice (though I think he'd need sonar for that).

the simplest way, to me, would be to use an overarching job or goal set in the carib. let's say Mr. Johnson is a corp exec whose priceless art treasure was recently stolen, and the team is hired to track it down. the trail leads them to the carib, where they mix it up with the locals and make a name for themselves over the course of 5-6 or more runs. once the priceless art treasure has been reacquired and payments settled, you and your players have the choice of remaining in the carib and doing the pirate thing, or--if you've all satisfied your piratical urges--heading back to seattle for more traditional running.

many players might be resistant if you say 'hey, let's totally change the focus of our campaign'. but if you draw them into a change, holding out a goal for them to achieve while you put them through their paces, it'll be easier to persuade them.

The easiest way is to simply present them with a run that involves them having to somewhere like Havana for the job. Have it come to them through a firendly fixer. And have part of the payment be that travel costs/flights are taken care of and that at completion they get a fortnight before the return tickets. So they go down, do the job and then veg out on abeach for a couple weeks.

During the job though they're going to need contacts and information on the new location, so have the fixer the job came through give them the contact details of a friendly local fixer he's done business with in the past. Half way though the after-run holiday the local fixer comes to them with a serious rush job that he needs/wants outsiders to handle because for whatever reason locals can't be used and he already knows they're in the area, good and vouched for. From there just lead them into it.

Maybe the rush job requires the use of a boat or some piratical type activities. Have them run into pirates/runners during their time there that talk up how much cash there is to make or how good it is to make your own work, not get yanked about by a Johnson and generally talk up the locale.

Are any of my players going to pipe up on this?

Only to ask, "Why would you need to force anyone into piracy?"

Arrrg... the sea she be a harsh mistress... er... mon.

*has nothing of value to add, just practicing hokey Jamaican pirate voice*

*whistles innocently, has never done that, nope*

I agree Tjn, and that why I'll looking for ideas. I wanted them to have a legimate reason for staying, and I wanted them to be excited about the possiblities that awaited them there.

I have told them that I was thinking about it and the response was mostly neutral, but then the response is always mostly neutral. Only person who was excited was the rigger, and I think that more has to do with the prospect of naval scale weapons.