In my game there is a sleazy club owner who needs to be shaken down. I’d figured it would take place either at the club, or at his home, so I put some thought into how to make both of those interesting. (“How to describe ‘Hoppers’ nightclub? Imagine someone had heard about the old Playboy clubs, but decided that they were far too classy and not nearly overtly sexual enough.”)

So of course, players being players, it is going to happen on his way home from the club, waylaying his car so they can have a little chat away from his usual security systems.

I’m trying to think of how to make this more interesting than “a group of prepared ‘runners stop a fast-talking club owner and his one bodyguard.” On his own, barring the team setting up in the wrong place and missing him, it should not, reasonably, remotely be a contest. This whole mission has had a lot of talking, perception rolls, negotiation….but minimal action (my fault, I’d not thought things through enough when I planned this out—and worse, the sub-plots I sprinkled about have mostly failed to attract any player interest). So I’d like to turn this into something far more dramatic, dangerous, and stressful, to bring some energy into the whole thing. (alternately I just let it go down fairly easy, wrap this up, learn something from it, and try to make the next mission better)

I have a lot of elements I could pull in (the club owner has manipulated money out of a lot of people and it is starting to catch up with him, meanwhile a dragon is looking to buy the club from him, and independently of that has henchmen tracking one of the PCs, and of course the club owner could send a signal for help at the first sign of things going wrong). The intercept will be happening at something like 4am in (somewhat gritty) Oakland, California, so I’d expect that most people living nearby would keep their heads down, and security patrols shouldn’t be too frequent….but not too far away once the alarm goes out.

If it matters, have a shaman, shooter, and B&E artist working with a street samurai who is one of the people from who the club owner scammed money--although the runners are actually working for a now simsense star who when getting started had been in one of the deliberately terrible simsense productions he'd made (but never released) as part of one of his scams, and who wants those buried for good.

Anyone have some good experience or ideas from this type of situation?

- The local gang doesn't like seeing other people carjacking on their turf.
- Another team has decided to do something similar a bit before/after
- This night, the club-owner is coming home with a celebrity. His car is followed by a fleet of paparazzi drones and/or fans.
- Tonight is riot night in the rough neighborhood on the way home. The car is armored, and the driver is armed, so the club-owner shouldn't be too worried, as long as the driver drives fast and menacingly enough.
- Tonight is the night after the riots. Heavily armored cops are raiding the area, arresting a list of people and everyone suspicious.
- There's a hungry Incubus (big land octopus that lives in urban areas, read the desires of the victims and take the appropriate shape to lure them) on the road.

- All of the above

How about:

1. He pops a doc-wagon screamer, summoning the HTR team as soon as trouble kicks off
2. Nomadic go-gangers are prowling the streets ahead, looking for the local gang, who are behind. The target and runners are in-between as an escalating gun battle develops
3. The vehicle they stop contains a dummy or decoy - using plastic surgery, a body double or magic to complete the disguise
4. As the fight kicks off, or the players trigger their ambush, the stop the target ok, and completely overpower their mark. However, the big shot corp / organised crime boss in the limo behind thinks it's an attack on him, and calls in the heavies
5. They find the target dead in the back of the car, having snorted some nova-coke laced with arsenic - they missed their man, and now need to find out who offed him and why. And what to do with the briefcase of certified credsticks that were in the trunk (with one of them having a high rating AOD tracker perhaps, or all of them blank waiting to have credit put on them for some unknown reason?)
6. Have the target have a tattoo of the shamens totem animal, and for mythic reasons, the shamen has a hard time carrying out the task at hand - not a massive complication, but should encourage PVP roleplay

Thanks for the suggestions. Hmmm, having him dead could be interesting....instead of trying to negotiate the 'never release' the simsense productions, it turns into a scramble to find what he's done with them, and delete them..... of course, doesn't mean that other stuff can't also be happening (and being the first people to find him dead, they are obvious suspects if they leave any traces behind......) and double-hmmmm, if it looks like a spirit tore him apart, extra paranoia time for the shaman...