Veteran player, noob GM looking for some advice on a starting group. 400 BP builds, three gun bunnies with a mix of supplement skills, a technomancer and a good hacker. No magic support, no medical support (though I'm thinking about throwing a passive NPC into the mix but could make for a good game without one.) I've got the run planned in phases, we usually game once a month for an entire weekend. Starts with an "Audition" similar to Inception only well, more devious and real, not in a frikkin dream world. One of their fixers is going to hook them up with a nobody johnson for a run, while really the run is a setup to see if the runners survive, which will allow them to run for an actual johnson. I'm thinking the nobody run will be something like a datasteal, which will involve trying to get a local go-gang to setup a diversion, who in turn want some better gear for the job, which leads the runners to rob a Lone Star escort for weapons. From there they do the diversion, or not depending on how they play it, only to find that the data to be stolen turns into an all out gun battle and evasion mission. From there I get a little writers block, don't know what a corp johnson would want with a group like this, maybe an actual datasteal? I've got my own timeline with a few inclusive events that are separate from the canon SR timeline. But, some advice on basically what to set them up against, who to set them up against, and a basic how to go about things as it pertains to GMing SR would be great. I've played for a few years and love the system, but running it is a different dish altogether.

Hm... by the sound of it you may be planning to railroad them a bit too much. (In my opinion... everybody plays different). What if they can get another diversion? What if they can get weapons for the gang a different way?

If this is audition to get into juicy business with some powerful Johnson... yeah, he might use them for a high-risk, high pay job similar to the "easy" one itself. A lot of firepower and two hackers lend themselves to "crash in - steal all their data - hold out till we have corrupted all files and logs - break out and lead a wild chase through the city"

But there are a lot of different jobs: Sabotage, high-profile detective work, bodyguard jobs. Infiltration with likely combat... much to do.

You have no mage in the group... i would say THAT is great for you as gm, since they have to rely on smarts and planning and not just: "We just throw spirits at it, till the problem goes away". Also you can make magic scary.

For ideas:
I, too had my people do an "relatively easy" run as an audition for a professional Johnson (though independent- not corp): They broke into a science station and stole data and test subjects (For example one guy who had nanites in the head trying to copy technomancer abilities - doesn't work *g*).

After that the real job was (based on an old run in a mag) getting into an old particle-physics lab, which was somehow radiated in the second crash. Since the corp and the country where it was build pretty much were in a legal battle over that, the lab was just concreted up and left there to glow. So the legal battle comes to an end, and the employer wants my team to go in and steal everything of worth (data foremost) as the country gets their drones out of there and the corp doesn't have a real presence there.

But there is another runner team with the same plan (Only they are getting there not as stealthily and hurry the arriving of corp forces.) ALSO there are some WEIRD and dangerous spirit entities in the old underground part. Played as: Action-Horror-Action-Evasion.

Something like that could work. (I would give you my notes... but they are in german.)



BUT don't just hang onto the runs. LET them meet people, get contacts... then think about what THEY are doing... what is happening on the street. Build stories around those dozens of people the players meet. And follow their plans and such. Build a living world for your players to experience.

For example: My team got a quick-and-easy job to intercept a datacourier from Hong-Kong. So they asked if they can get some information about him. I said sure and made him an ex-assassin (Ki-Ad) looking to betray his old boss with selling the info on that organization to the russians.

My Players got him and let him live (stealing his data). Now he was stranded here, without anything to go back to and no friends. So he planned REVENGE (setting up a story more). BUT ALSO i had a war between some new triad in town and the russians at hand. And introduced both sides to the characters. More people, more stories.

Well... i rambled on enough, i guess. Good luck.

Three physical specialists with tech backup. A rigger would round things out nicely, but aside from that, that sounds like really, the most common sort of outside contractors you're going to encounter. You can run whatever sort of mission you'd like. If magic is a problem, either make it a magic-poor world, or make some neat tools to help them defend against magic (basically portable magical defense, or increase magical TNs by essence).

Really, the primary concern here shouldn't be 'what can I run' - you can run anything. It should be 'what would my players enjoy?'

It does sound a bit like railroading. Specifically, recruiting the go-gang by bribing them with stolen weapons..

What if the hacker+technomancer invent a different kind of distraction that doesn't require the go-gang?

What if they try to just talk their way in, instead of breaking in? They might not need a distraction in the first place.

Well the whole diversion with the go-gang thing is just an option, it really is up to how they want to play it, using hacking is a great way to do so I agree, but IF they choose the option of using the go-gang, which will be put forward as said option by the nobody johnson, then the gangers want heavier payload for the job. That's where I was going with that.