Alright. New adventure concept to flesh out a bit and need to enlist the aid of reality TV junkies.

First, full disclosure: This adventure will be set in 2050s era Seattle. I'm using SR2 as my rules base, but that shouldn't be important for this.

Basic Premise: A new club is opening up in the Seattle. The club promoters have hired the "neo brat pack" to come help open the club and drum up interest among the hot and trendy in Seattle. The neo brat pack is made up of modern day equivalents of Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan. Basically a trio of women who are famous for nothing more than being famous. Their security is looking to beef up its detail with some local talent and the runners are recommended by one of their contacts. It looks like a pretty coush job: baby sit three celebutants for three days while they are in town and collect a credstick. In the meantime, they get all the perks of the regular security detail. They get to stay in posh hotels, all expenses paid, and get to rub shoulders with the glamorous people of Seattle.

Twists and complications:
The first complication comes before the job even starts. A local tabloid rag approaches on of the runners with a proposal. Let them install an optic camera cyber eye so they can fill the whole visit from a "behind the scenes" view. The runner gets a fat credstick AND gets to keep the eye for their trouble. Of course, taking this job will violate the runner's contract with the celebutants (if they find out) and could damage their street cred long term. Is it worth it?

But the big complication is a bit more involved. The celebutants are being targeted by the Vory organization (or another group of black market organ traffickers). The plan is pretty simple, kidnap one (or more) of the celebutants, slice and dice, clone the organs and sell them on the black market for those who want a special piece (one of a kind, naturally) of your favorite celebutant. To get close to the women, they've enlisted the aid of a local fan cult who completely idolize the target celebutant. The cult is a dup in this arrangement. Their job is to draw the celebutant out into the open and away from protection so they can be snatched up.

Meanwhile, the runners have to deal with 72 hours of madcap mayhem by these three women, with complications ripped straight from the headlines:

* one tries to seduce one of the shadowrunners and secretly records it as a simsense. Naturally, it gets out later and the runner must endure "do I know you from somewhere" for the rest of his career.

* one insists on visiting "the best coffee bar in Seattle" which is tucked deep inside the Redmond barrens.

* a drunk-dialed suiter

* constant attempts to ditch security and have some "real fun".

* ask the runner(s) to score them the current designer drug of choice...

Also thrown into the mix is a Perez Hilton-esque decker, a real muckracker who dishes dirt on all the celebrities. This should give the decker in the security detail something to do.

Yes, I've finally found something to do with all those hours wasted watching various Kardashian shows and the Bad Girls Club to keep my wife happy. Yes, the plan is to dish out plenty of satire before ramping up the horror in the end. And yes, the targeted celebutant has to be at least sympathetic enough that the runners don't wash their hands of the job after the first few hours (or geek her themselves).

So what do I need? Well, if anyone who like to contribute a madcap scenario to throw at the runners – something bizarre and ridiculous that these women would get involved that the runners would need to step in to clean up. I can't say that I follow any of these real life celebutants with any real interest.

Another thing I would like to do is put together sort of a random table of mishaps. Each time these ladies pour out of the limousine, roll on the table and see what happens. Again, focusing on situations that the runners are going to have to intervene in.

Finally, feel free to suggest any additional characters that should surround these celebutants.

Or tell me this idea is too ridiculous to be taken seriously.

Right now I'm all over the place on this one. So I need some focus to tighten things up a bit. Oh, and recommendations for how to cyber/magic this whole thing up would help too.

Thanks,
Tom

Personally, I don't think is the the sort of thing runners would be paid to do - at least not in the way you're portraying it.

Runners are SINless. No one is going to hire SINless as security for celebrities - at least not visible security, anyway. There's too many people looking to find dirt on the celebrities, too many legal considerations, et cetera.

You might hire a team of runners as background insurance, if you're expecting real trouble and want a backup for if your legitimate security gets overwhelmed, but they're in the background, discrete, unseen, unofficial, deniable assets. No interacting with the celebrities, no being seen by fans or paparazzi, you're just the thugs who come in and clean things up if they go really bad.

~Umi

Hmmm...hadn't really considered that angle.

Alright, so how do I make the concept work then?

Tom

The problem is that most of the story elements you seem keen to include involve your players being in close contact with the celebs, and that's just not gonna happen.

The plot with the Vory could work out. Maybe the Runners are hired specifically to counter it, and are tasked with discretely backing up the normal security folks. Some of the other details could still work, just one step removed. One of the girls slips past her own security people and heads for her favorite coffee shop in the Barrens? The runners discretely catch up with her, shadow her, and guard her without her even realizing they're there, until the security team can show up and take control again. A crazed fan breaks into their dressing room? The Runners make sure it isn't a decoy or a plant while the security guys escort the nutjob out again.

Basically anytime the normal security has to deal with a crisis, anytime things get hectic and chaotic and they can't immediately spot or respond to additional problems that might crop up, the runners are there to fill the gap and keep things secure without anyone even knowing it.

There's a bomb scare in one of the venues? The normal security guys are escorting people from the building, but the runners are sweeping for hostiles on the roof, in the astral, in the local Matrix nodes, et cetera. Is this a stupid stunt by a deranged fan or a hater, or is this a distraction by the Vory to give their kidnappers an opening? One of the girls slips into a broom closet with some random douchebag? The normal security guys will have to interrupt the intimate moment, but the runners are carrying out electronic warfare, sniffing the wireless to see if this jackass is transmitting secret footage, hacking his PAN to make sure he's not recording via cybereyes or microcamera. The Vory decides subtlety isn't their thing and their goons drive up in an armored car with guns blazing? The normal security handles the panicking celebs and civilians while you guys bring out the big guns and kill the ever loving crap outta some dudes.

~Umi

How about making the "tabloit rag" the Johnson who wants dirt/blackmail material on the celebs or their producer and manages to get the runners on top of the list for "external consultants" for a new reality show with those three (Simple Life in the Barrens. Or rather, make it the Ork Underground when you use the current metaplot).

If the players want to cash in twice they have to collect enough material for the Johnson and protect the celebs.
For additional comic relief the celebs are completely oblivious that the Underground is still dangerous and that the Runners are there for their protection. Instead they have been told they are local actors (and the producers only pay the players if they keep up this ruse).

People would ask questions. Background checks and whatnot are pretty much standard for those sorts of reality shows. Unless the runners have Fake SINs which are appropriate to the job they're supposedly being hired to perform, they're not going to be able to fool all the various people who are going to be checking off on their participation, particularly the show's lawyers.

There are just too many people involved at the celebrity level, too many checks and safeties, because there is just so much money involved. Even if the celebrities themselves are idiots, their handlers are not. They don't let anyone come within 100 feet of their bread and butter without a thorough check.

EDIT - Unless you mean the Johnson is getting them signed on as the extra security. I assumed you meant they get signed on as actual "external consultants" for the show. Dunno how that'd work, though.

~Umi

This is completely insane. The Vory need to sell this "merchandise". The logical buyers are people who are really big fans. What percentage of them will go "cool" and pull out the credits, and what percentage will go screaming to the police? This means that LS and the various federal and megacorp security that gets involved in the kidnapping will find out - and find out very fast. So you have a way for the cops to instantly find the people who did this. What logically happens next to people like that?

That ignores the minor detail that ritual magic will certainly find ALL the people who have the "merchandise" and at least one of the buyers will talk when her agent and sponsors start cutting off the buyers fingers with pruning shears one joint at a time.

Actually, that's not so bad. It even makes the scenario stronger. I think my original plan is a bit too much of a send up. It risks being too much of a joke until it is not. And really, the only thing pulling back the runners into a more shadowy role does is cut out the gross jokes. Done!

Now, what I'm hesitant to do is lay out the Vory plot from the beginning. Not that it's a bad idea, I just like the idea of a surprise adversary that suddenly makes the runners' lives that much more complicated. Now, I feel a generic kidnapping threat is just too obvious and germaine. This is the sixth world. Awakened and chromed. So what would be a threat that would warrant hiring a handful of shadowrunners for back up? Something far fetched enough to be a concern, but not overshadow the actual planned crime (selling celebrity organs on the black market).

Tom

I'm fine with insane. The antagonist doesn't have to be the Vory. I just figured it already fit their MO.

Who says the buyer(s) are local? Who says they don't already have interest?

The ritual sorcery is a hair more problematic. But I imagine there is a way around that.

Thank you, though, for pointing out these red flags. This is exactly the kid of feedback I need.

Tom

Location doesn't matter. I can email the KGB (oh, I mean the FSS) from anywhere. I can certainly contact the company of an agent of any celebrity (It's hard to get gigs booked if your booking manager can't be reached). The call to the FBI that got Whitey Bulger arrested in California came from Europe. Location doesn't matter once the story is big enough, everyone knows about it and can easily find who to call.

Kidnapping of celebrities, murder of celebrities and cutting up ANYONE to sell the parts as souvenirs are each a top news story that will be good for at least a week. You roll them all together and your talking about something that will draw news and police attention in a huge way, and no organized crime figure really wants to have 5000 motivated investigators looking for evidence on them, their organization and the members of the organization. Much less having all the members of their violent criminal organization figuring out how to most expeditiously make their sudden new problem go away.

So yeah, I'd not make it an actual existing criminal organization. It's just too insane.

Who said anything about murder?

So long as they manage to abduct them quietly, they could quickly collect tissue samples for cloning, patch them up, erase their memory with laés or other methods, and then drop them off somewhere they'll be found with planted drugs and evidence of the girls going off and getting fucked up for fun. If you leave them with a decent amount of Pixie Dust, that cleanly explains their disappearance and their memory loss, and their handlers will be so worried about covering it up and keeping it quiet that it will never get investigated.

~Umi

I did.

As I see it, there are three ways this works out:

1) you kill the celebutant, cut her up and sell the pieces as one of a kind. Big money there.
2) you kill the celebutant, cut her up, clone the pieces and sell them while advertising them as one of a kind. Big money too.
3) tank samples, clone the parts, and sell them like some counterfeit designer fragrance. Good money, but not nearly as big a payday.

I figure I might as well go big given the target.

Maybe I should heed my wife's suggestion more: kidnap all three and stitch them together for a Frankenstein-ean "super celeb". It's just as insane. I just can't picture the profit margin as well.

Tom

One option could be to go for the 'Harem abduction' plot - some over-moneyed fan wants to have the star all to himself, quietly keeping her Under wraps in a carefully warded location (depending of his particular mindset, he could even go fro specia lhunt then have the corpse stufffed and mounted, or go for a celebrity feast...). Of course to throw investagtions away, he will probably have a clone (orenough cloned bits) to give credible evidence she's dead. Have some patsy genuinely convinced they have nabbed and trashed the real goods to take the fall and stop investigations. I'd think there would be no shortgae of puritan groups, disgruntled fans and the like to provide the catspaws.

Dependong on who is performing the hit, you may even use the opportunity to do a personnality mapping for the bunraku/personachips market.

Move it to LA and you're set. Imagine the celebutards seeing runners on Persona 2.0 and demanding to hire them as they're "professional". Most probably as in "the perfect people to murder their vaginas". Add beleaguered talent agents tired of the typical celebrity shit.

Also, try those celebrity horror stories:
http://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2012/12/...-her-thumb.html - the job involves an actor, his greedy significant other, some form of mind control (drugs, magic, whatever) and a hit on the guy.
Include a possibility of the guy snapping out of it, for example to call in a favor and get the players as his security detail.
http://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2012/12/...lind-items.html - what do you do if a freaked-out talent agent calls you to "clean up" after a teenage starlet who brained herself with a Ruger Warhawk in a drugged haze and her douchebag boyfriend is on the run?
http://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2011/11/...m-revealed.html - this time, the hacker has to steal some saucy paydata, namely the "fuck log" of explosion-loving director Mark Harbor.
http://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2009/01/...ealed_7222.html - okay, make it two quests. If we're hacking the slot's commlink for a fuck log, why not steal some scripts and secret VFX previews too?

Celebrity horror stories! Perfect!

Not really interested in moving the scenario to LA. I'm hoping to keep at least the early scenarios grounded in Seattle. Given some of my long term plans, a visit to the CFS is inevitable. But for right now I want to get some mileage out of my old Seattle Sourcebook.

Tom

Oh, as they say in Japan, "a cat is fine too". Plus, in the 2050s, Hollywood isn't that big (it's Horizon that pretty much kickstarted it again) and I believe some showbiz does function in Seattle.
On the blog I linked to, there's also some old story about a guy who ended up promoted from gofer to a studio exec after helping some actors get rid of a dead prostitute, so I believe your players might get employed to feed the ghouls with an OD victim or something like that.

I'm planning on pushing Horizon up in the timeline a bit for my campaign. The plan is to make it sort of a Disney/Dreamworks cludge. The Disney empire is just too big to ignore these days. The lack of an entertainment-focused megacorp in 2050 just feels like a glaring black hole in the setting to me. Horizon seems like a perfect solution to that, and just winding back the date of incorporation to 2041 instead of 2061 solves all the problems. I mean sure, all the megacorps have a foot in entertainment, but as media is going to play a big role in my campaign, having a focused megacorp in the background makes sense.

I'm also planning on adding something of a monolithic PR firm. But that is a subject for a different post.



Awesome. Tons of fodder. Thanks again.

So back to brainstorming. More later.

Tom

Ok, so lets get back to a red flag...



Now personally, I'm fine with just having a necromancer on the payroll and chalking it up to "maaaagic." But lets assume I don't want to handwave this detail away completely. Don't worry about the hard rules and specifics, but is there a way to defeat, or "sever", the sympathetic link that would bind the various components here?

Tom

See, if they are relying upon Ritual Magic to find a part of a part, I am not sure how well that would work, since a normal person sheds millions of parts (skin cells, hair, sputum, etc.) Besides, Ritual Magic can use a part to find a Whole, but can you use a part to find a part?

Not sure. Reading up on it, it seems completely valid. I would certainly allow it.

Judging from the old (SR2) Grimoire, there is no overt way to thwart this. However, creating a spell that could "decouple" a piece from the original essence is certainly possible.

But it is an interesting question: once an organ is placed in a subject, how long before the essence of one subsumed the other? Discounting freak incidents (the hand with a mind of its own), when does that heart transplant become part of you? The old grimoire suggests that for blood samples, the sympathetic link remains for a number of hours equal to the bleeder's essence. I would say an organ would remain longer than that, but once it has been transplanted into a new body, it's only a matter of time.

If I had to make a spot decision, I'd say essence in days until transplanted, at which point any remaining time is reduced to hours. Unless the donor is a Mage, shaman or phys adept. Then special rules might apply.

Hell, this might make good fodder for an adventure itself.

Tom

Why don't the Vory not simply kill the celeb after taking enough samples to clone her and dump the body? That way there wouldn't be that much reason to use ritual magic to locate her. After the initial heat dies down (keep the sample in a manacoffin or something like that for the duration) no one would bother to look for other parts as the body has been recovered and a scapegoat has been punished (the players?).

Of course that would also reduce the shelf life of the product as the fame of such celebs fade quickly.

I guess maybe it depends on reknown the celebrity. If someone was selling a black market clone of Michael Jackson, people would buy it. Would the same be true of a future version Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan? Probably.

~Umi

What a sad comment on humanity.

Humanity isn't the sum of it's parts, nor even the average. It is a wide spectrum of potentials. Humanity can reach terrible lows, but is also capable of astounding highs. In the words of Sagan, "...an adaptable species".

~Umi

This is actually why I think it would make for a cool adventure.

BTW, after reviewing what I have on organized crime (thank you Shadowrun wiki), it looks like Vorys was the wrong crime syndicate. Tanamous looks closer to what I'm envisioning in the official cannon. But I'm thinking this needs its own group. Hmmm...

Tom

Oops! Double Post.

It needs the joker.