Aloha!

I decided that my new group of player will be (more or less willing) working for the Triads in Seattle 2064. So they're running against the Mob and the Yaks. But as i'm a little out of creative ideas (seems as if my current Earthdawn-campaign dried me out...), i need some suggestions what the runners can do? What sort of runs can they get?
Burning down an illegal bar or a brothel (mob-owned) is sth. that came in my mind... but not more, so i need YOU

Runs against the mob:

*Steal a case/shipment of mob-owned BTLs

*Expose a politician on the mafia payroll

*Bust up a union meeting of your choice

*Do any of the above, but make it look like a Seoulpa ring/Yakuza/Vory did it.

How about interfering with pizza deliveries?

Barring that, I think that intercepting some btls/drugs/weapons would be good work for shadowrunners. Maybe planting evidence to implicate the Don in a nice child pornography ring? You might want to rent a few mob movies to get some ideas.

Edit - Foiled again! Curse you RangerJoe!

Well, the Triads in Seattle focus primarily on "protection" and extortion. Of course, smuggling and drug/chip dealing are also up there. The Yakuza concentrate on prostitution, gambling (i.e. running casinos), and specialize in a corporate-oriented form of extortion called sokaiya. I think the Mafia has its hand in just about every cookie jar out there.

Actually, all three of them dabble in everything. The above is just meant to highlight each's specialty. So, you could have your runners carry out the protection and extortion, and also protect the Triad's interest in them by not letting the Mafia or Yakuza in the door.

Alternatively you could have your runners act more proactively and assign them to disrupt Mafia and Yakuza operations. Honestly, running a Triad team isn't too much different that running a team working for a corp or just your average Johnson. They're still criminals, and they're still getting paid.

Also: the Underworld Sourcebook (2nd ed.) is a good place to learn about this sort of thing.

We just did a run for the Yaks.

A shipment was coming into seattle through the Port of Tacoma and needed to make it to a flophouse in Redmond. The yaks, through one of their informants found out the Triads had information that was leaked about the shipment and were planning to hijack it.

The Yaks were going to stick to their schedule and make the pickup and delivery. Our job was to ambush the potential hijackers and find out who gave them their orders and try to determine which yak leaked the info, or if it was somebody else entirely...

Well, you have to differenciate as to whether the runner will BE Triad or simply work for the Triads. The syndicates have their own people to do most of their jobs, and usually only give runners jobs they don't want poeple to know it was them (i.e. not business as usual), jobs so dangerous they're not even willing to give them to annoying petionners (not interesting for a shadowrun campaign IMO) or jobs that require specialised talents that in-house members do not posses. So use that as a starting point. Also, remember Triads are the most secretive of syndicates, as well as the most magically minded.

I agree with Backgammon. What your working relationship for the Tongs will make a huge difference.

Organized crime is clannish-at first I would assume your PC's are outsiders, and treated as such. (Especially if they are, say, not chinese (Despite the progressive nature of the Triads, I imagine it is still the simplest common denominator.), or they don't speak chinese. (Easiest way to maintain operational security for years in this sort of business is confine your operations to people who speak the lingo.))

Building up trust should be a major issue. So should respect. In any group like this, there will be tests to see if the PC's are willing to stand up for themselves. The test could be as simple as how the take deragtory remarks, to actual violence. How they handle that should speak volumes about what sort of people they are.

Well working for the Triads would be a hard one as what Paul and Backgammon has said you would have to know your Chinese.

Most of the Orient Mobs use there own trusted soldiar to do there bidding.
The Mafia would use external sources for different jobs. ( Deniable evedince)

The only real way you could have a link to the Traids is for of BTL or Narcotic reseller pimp or even a distrabuter to the streets.

To have a non Chinese in the Traids in a place of position, you would become expendable.

A good idea is they work for Traids and then they will meet there demise which could leed to a good long run with the Traids trying to tie up loose ends. With a 3rd party mob getting envolved.

Another angle to remember is that some of the Triads have links (whether they know it or not) to Lung (or presumeably other Eastern dragons) or Wuxing, so you could be used by the Triads to do dirty work for those entities - it just gives the final orchestrators of the plan that much more deniability.

Also, since the Triads are the most magical of the syndicates, they might want to keep it that way. A runner group would be a great way to whittle down any Mob or Yak magical talent without risking their own precious magical recources in a direct attack.

-If they are occidental, infiltrating the Mob could be a good work.

-Wet-work could be a good option too.

-If you have many deckers in your group, corrupting/modifying internal transmissions between Mob bosses could start nice internal problems.

Those are the ideas that come out the tip of my head.

""You just listen to the Pork Chop Express and take his advice on a dark and stormy night..."

Come on guys. Haven't seen it in years, but Big Trouble in Little China is one of my all time favorite movies. And it has quite a bit of made for Shadowrun stuff just waiting to be played out, with physical adepts, magicians, familiars, critters of all types, gun play, magic, and lots of martial arts.

There was Jack Burton, played by Kurt Russel. A truck driver in his rig he called the Pork Chop Express. He was like no help at all in the fighting. but he was really funny with his one liners. "You know what ol' Jack Burton says at a time like this" "Who?" "Jack Burton...ME!" This is who the team replaces in the story.

There was Wang Chi, the owner of a restaurant the Dragon of the Black Pool. He is the real hero of the story. He likes to gamble, he can fight, and he has the connections. The story revovles around him. This is the triad member that could be friends with the team.

Egg Shen, was the tour bus driver. Egg Fu Young Tours. He should be the powerful anti villain. Probably an initiate of some power. The team has to help him get to where he can battle with the arch villain in the story.

Gracie Law, she was a lawyer who was picking up a girl that looked just like Wang's fiance except she did not have green eyes. The Lords of Destruction that had been sent to the airport to kidnap Wang's girl grabbed her by mistake and drew Gracie into the plot. Whe can end up being a love interest to one of the players or left out.

Miao Yin, which to me sounded just like Jao Ying(princess in Chinese), is a one in a trillion girl. She is Chinese with natural green eyes. She is basically what the whole plot is about. If she marries with the arch villain the emperor? will be appeased and the villain will be free to rule the universe from beyond the grave.

Margo, is a reporter doing a story on the arch villain and the triads. She could have been developed more as a character. But it is always cool for a newshound to get in on the action.

Eddie Wong, is the matre'D at Wang's restaurant. He is one of Wang's good friends and likes Margo. When they were passing out guns he got the smallest. He knows everything there is to know about the Chinese triads, which is probably why Margo is kind of leading him along.

Uncle Chu, is the chef at Wang's restaurant and knows the great wizard Egg Chen.

David Lo Pan, is the ceo of the Wing Cong Exchange. He is the arch villain. He is 2000 years old. He is only a spirit. He has to marry a Chinese girl with green eyes and has been waiting 2000 years for one to become available so he can appease the emeror? and become flesh again. Not sure exactly how to play this guy. He can project astrally, and he does all thru the movie. It wouldn't be a good idea for the players to confront him in the astral though. I think he is too powerful for them. They have to get Egg Chen to Lo Pan's layer somehow for Lo Pan to be defeated. YOu have to figure this part out.

Thunder, is one of the storms, he was kind of like Lo Pan's butler? He had powerful attacks because he smashes everything in sight.

Rain, uses two long swords amongst other weapons and is one of the storms.

Lightning, is the coolest in my opinion. His phsical adept powers are manifested with brilliant displays. He has crackling lightning that arcs out of his hands and when he puts them together he kind of charges a bolt of lightning he can throw. I would give him distance strike and the hand motions a geasa. Also he levitates on a column of lightning. Maybe he has levitate as an edge from the old second addition edges and flaws? They all have it actually. Maybe their master Lo Pan is somehow doing the spell for them thru a focus or something?

Just a quick aside question, but what book mentions the Vory? Is it in Underworld Sourcebook?

I think it was the Underworld sourcebook, although there might have been something in Target Smugglers Havens as well but I can't be sure. Whilst we're on the subject of the Vory though, I'll just take this opportunity to pimp DV8's excellent write-up of them which can be found here.

But back to the original question. First thing that comes to mind is kill them- mobsters aren't like shadowrunners, for the most part they're just ordinary mundane people with no real enhancements. Their power comes from money and being part of the organisation itself. Killing a load of them shouldn't be that difficult.

Track down the fixers and fences that the mob back, rip them off and kill them. Puts a crimp in their cash-flow and provides you with extra resources.

Find out which businesses they use to launder their cash and torch the places. They still might be making the money but if they can't launder and spend it then it's useless to them for the short term, especially annoying during a war.

Likewise the smugglers they back. They start losing cargo and it costs them, both financially and reputation-wise when they can't come through and deliver the goods or they keep having to move the delivery date back. And you also get to keep all the cool valuable stuff.

Kill or blackmail and turn their politicians and police stooges.

Go after the gangs that they use as canon fodder/street soldiers that take car of the low level stuff like boosting cars or selling BTL's.

If you want to be really evil though, then the best idea is to start a war between the Mob and the Yakuza. Hit the Yaks then leave clues pointing towards the Mob being responsible. Then hit the Mob and make the Yaks look guilty. Do it smoothly enough and continue with some small scale hits on both sides make it happen and then keep things rolling along and you're set. Then when they're both weakened you go on the offensive. This is a very high risk strategy though since if the screw up and it gets out, then you've got the two largest underwold groups comeing after you with a vengeance.