Hey guys,

I'm running a storyline out of Milwaukee and I'm having a little trouble developing an overarching theme or goal.
I have each of our sessions mapped on a web, and I know how they affect each other; they just don't feel related.

Exciting elements:
Winnebago Indian vs. UW Milwaukee dpt of Arcane Arts
Chicago Fallout / Ghoul Underground Railroad
Squatter Gangs vs. KE & Developers
BTL Trafficking
Mafia and a lot of pies

Does a game need an overarching theme or goal? Does that feel a little forced?
Is it weird to have a series of seemingly unrelated events or is it necessary to have a "big bad" the group is always fighting?

I don't want to fall into the random run curse, but I also don't want to contrive a conspiracy so player direction gets beaten over their heads.

What do you think?

I see the ghoul thing, the mafia and the BTL trafficking and I think Tamanous. Some smuggler finds out running corpses pays better than chips, goes scooping up corpses after firefights (there's your gang/KE war) and the nuyen starts rolling in. But he never finished that last shipment for the Family. Then the PCs come in. Find the smuggler, persuade him. But Tamanous like their new delivery boy....

If you let the runners have their lead and make sure actions have logical consequences an overarching story arc often just falls in your lap, whether it be because the group picks a goal and heads for it, screws up royally and has to deal with the repercussions, or decides there's a specific sort of thing they like to focus on more than others.

It's been a very actions vs. consequences game thus far.
They've set themselves up as BTL distributors, which provides a lot of potential content, but it's a little thin on big picture story lines.
I guess staying in business and not dying is a decent goal.

James is absolutely right. Think on a few characters, locations and organizations which are too big to just fade away when the mission is done, and track them. These are the things that define an ongoing campaign and story.

However, if you wish to make a more concrete campaign (and there's no requirement you do), try to establish a broad movement or political change, then figure out how you can tie 66% of those missions into either supporting or hindering it. The remainder are fluff and give a sense of things being 'real'. The ultimate motive of these missions does not have to be obvious; in fact, the more opaque it is, the better (especially early on). A politician who is distributing BTLs to help his 'community security' ticket, or to assist crime syndicates which are providing campaign funds, are examples of opaque but relevant missions.

I'm not sure what the 'mafia and pies' tie-in is. All I can think about with that is this:
http://i54.tinypic.com/1zchduv.jpg

Actually...I really like that.
They could find that a local politician is buying up an unusual amount of BTLS in order to justify a KE escalation.
The long term could be something like the struggle to stay in business despite the increasing KE presence.
Naturally, the mob boss is supplying the politician with his BTLs through the players.
There's intrigue, betrayal, drugs, cops, organized crime...

Very interesting indeed.

But the pies ... what about the pies??

The mafia have their fingers in a lot of pies, but I think I can do better than that.
Why don't you put that knife where it belongs...in a nice slice of pie!
Anybody want some pie?

Hmm... I actually Live right near Milwaukee and I went to UW Milwaukee! (we don't have a Department of Arcane Arts though, but if we did it would probably be in Merrill Hall. The Winnebago are called Ho-Chunk now, and they have a Casino so maybe that could be included in your storyline. Mafias..casinos...

Mafia smuggling BTLs in Pies, Gangers eat pies, Ghouls eat Gangers, Ghouls get Food Poisoning, end up as research for UWM, Winnebago(Ho-Chunk) collecting debt from Professor who has gambling habit.

Where does the Ghoul Underground Railroad go btw?
And are you running 4e?

The ghoul underground railroad is actually part of a mafia front producing very illegal cannibal fetish BTL's. Problem is once you are hooked you don't know where to stop...yum!

The ghoul underground railroad is actually part of a mafia front producing very illegal cannibal fetish BTL's. Problem is once you are hooked you don't know where to stop...yum!

I actually live in Madison and grew up in Milwaukee...so I basically took a bunch of places and fast-forwarded them 60 years.
Waukesha is a militarized/gated community and Madison (thanks to Epic Systems) has become the biotech capitol of the UCAS.

I just realized I screwed the Winnebago thing up. I thought they had only recently changed their name to Ho-Chunk, which is sort of true...but it is the tribe's original name for themselves, so it is the name they would have chosen after the Great Ghost Dance.

- Anyway...so the Ho-Chunk have taken over the Menominee valley and formed the Milwaukee Metro-Rez.
They still gamble, but there is a constant struggle against the academic-based universities and the city itself.
- I'm running a Devil's lake story in the next couple weeks and the whole state is bustin' with Amerind conflict.

- The ghoul underground gets the infected out of Cabrini Green, in Chicago, and really just out of Bug City.

-Their most recent story involved a Harley-based go gang based out of the former 6-flags theme park.

I would have the big bad guy being a shaman of the Ho-Chunk tribe. He would have first worked as a magical security specialist in the Ho-Chunk casinos (to spot magical cheating). As he became a more powerful mage and initiated, he grew an strong interest on control and hazard. The tribal elders handpicked him to manage all the Ho-Chunk casinos. With the job come all the connections with illegal betting and money laundering for smuggling operations with the "brothers" in the Sioux and Denver. The laundered money then goes into urban development projects. The tribe often contract Knight Errant Security Services just because the (former) Executive VP Roger Soaring-Owl is/was a native, as a decent number of employees.

Until now, the tribal had an uneasy truce or limited business going on with the Mafia and their bikers and ghouls henchmen and BTL dealers. The problem, the Mafia-aligned city officials are causing a lot of troubles to the Ho-Chunk.