So I will be starting a shadowrun game soon, and I am having a little trouble planning out the campaign for it. I was wondering if I could get some help. It is set in Azania (South Africa), Joburg to be exact.

So what I have from my players. I will have four on average, and a floating fifth who will show up based on her schedule.
They will be playing

An elf long ranged, stealthy, sort of character, focusing on guns, might get augs in the future.
Backstory: She was born in South America to parents employed by Aztechnology, later she would grow up to be one of their enforcers, paid to do what the company told her, recently she was sent off and was captured by someone (she doesn’t know why) and escaped, now she is just sort of there.

A human hermetic mage who is focusing on spells
Born to farmer type parents, went off to live in the big city and got caught up in crime. Worked with a local drug and basic alchemy manufacturer as the muscle of sorts.

A human (Maybe) adept who will probably focus on punching
Some kind of superhero complex(?) I have gotten very little from them that I liked. Or at least that I’ll approve. Basically what I did get is that they were a Nigerian Prince and they just need to make enough money to go back and take over their home country again. Which I don’t like, because I prefer a more serious character concept then that.

An armadillo shifter who will be using guns and is probably auged
He was born in Central America, his family was killed by a bunch of poachers, I believe they ran over his nest, right before he awoke to his shifter form. He wanted to escape/get a bit of revenge, which he did, ended up meeting other shifters, became friends with a Boar Shifter, with the help from an Orc Shaman they decided to leave Central America and head to Azania, where shifters have actual rights. They took a boat, were attacked by pirates, and he was washed up on the shore of Azania.

The floating character is a vulpine shifter adept who will be fighting with axes
They are a ‘descendant’ of a D&D character they made, basically allowing them to be called a legend, one which is definitely false but hey, stories are allowed. They don’t have much in way of backstory yet.

I am aware that they lack some Shadowrunning basics, about half of them haven't played Shadowrun and are coming in from D&D, so they are more used to the fighting mentality there. I am okay with that, since it might make for some fun situations where they find themselves needing to be creative. And I will be adjusting some challegenes accordingly.

So basically I wanted to make something that related to their backstories, but I’m having trouble finding a good connecting thread, or even something that works well for Shadowrun.
So far my idea is built around a Biotec (Probably Universal Omnitech) company that is trying to find a way to create augs that give metas magic and the abilities of critters. They are getting close, even if they aren’t quite there yet. They would be either in the prototype stage, or getting close to their first success. They would be using Shadowruns to help capture some critters and shifters and infected creatures. One of the early runs involving capturing a vampire, even if the runners don’t know who it is for or why. They would also be the ones who captured the boar shifter and staged the attack on the boat.
Something I was toying with is the idea of the elf sniper being under their control, basically they caught her and used some magic and science to manipulate her, making her think she escaped when they let her go, giving her a mission of sorts. Giving her a reason to stay in Azania.

Other than that I’m not sure where to go, or how to expand on this.

Slight Update

So I have been given the idea of having the players being augmented by Omnitech and having them act as the test subjects for some of this new tech, either with or without their knowledge on the subject. And honestly I kind of like that, especially when the tech starts to fail within them, giving them some lovely motivation to find who stuck it in there and A: Get it out B: Not do it again.

That said I would also like some advice on what to give the different members of the group. For the Armadillo I have the idea of giving him Harden to his natural armor, which I've made about 3, so not too game breaking. He wants to be more tanky anyways.
The fox can get Energy Aura, since they want to be Ice Themed anyways, they probably won't question it too much.
It is the rest I'm having trouble thinking of something good.

My advice? Slow down.

The real beauty of Shadowrun is it can be taken in nice epiodic chunks with as little or as much linking between them as you and the players choose to make. I woudl think on a per run basis until things get going maybe playing some future seeds. I wouldn't concern yourself with too much metaplot until you figure out what really makes your players and their characters tick.

Also i don't know what edition you are going with but in previous editions (ii honestly don't know for fifth) shifters don't get augs as unless you get everything custom (delta grade) cyberware is fundamentally incompatable with shifter physiology.

Secondly I would advise you to make sure you have a very firm grasp of the shifter rules as they can be extremely powerful depending on the edition you are playing (again no idea what they look like in fifth).

Ah sorry thought I mentioned it, but clearly I didn't. It is 5th. So, they at least don't have any regeneration any more.

I agree with LurkerOutThere about starting slow, especially if the players are not used to Shadowrun and come with a D&D fighting mentality. You might even want to get them started more as a gang than as a shadowrunner team, have them learn the ropes and build a reputation until they actually become shadowrunners.

For the elf sniper, if you want her to be a deep-cover agent for UO, you can have her with her actual memories hidden behind a trigger word, I think there are rules for this somewhere.

For the human adept, you can have the whole Nigerian Prince thing be a delusion that came from BTL abuse or Psychotropic IC encounter (or meddling from UO if you want). The character (and player) can be convinced that it's true until the reveal. If it has been implemented, it should be done in a way that this particular delusion causes him to do something that benefits the corp.

I think there is some miss communication on my end. I don't want to start with the plot, at least not all of it, I just want some kind of story involved in my game, and I generally have something set up before hand. I am not used to Shadowrun's mindset, so trying to create a story has been difficult.

Not sure on the plot idea, but an idea that may help: have some of the early runs be recon-only, and/or have the requirement that they don't kill anyone. Also, from experience, include an unrelated fight with gangers or something. D&D players get bored if there's no combat, and will create combat.

Also, the best plots usually come out of the PCs' downtime activities. Have them detail those to keep the characters fleshed out during/between sessions.




I agree; that's crazy. The Nigerian Prince should be a face/conman.

If you'll take my personal opinion, forget about an overall storyline and plot. Let what the character's do in their downtime between runs, create the plots and storyline for you. Or rather, let all the character development etc. happen to the characters in their private lives, and use the "job" part of the game as sort of "entertainment" inbetween. That way you get to tailor a story to each of the different characters, and you get to prepare precisely the runs you want to, because there needn't be ANY connection between them or the characters themselves. That way, you can also run with any really cool conspiracy idea the players might come up with, if/when they try to connect a bunch of dots that are not supposed to be connected...