Hi guys, first of all thanks for reading this!

This is the question I was hoping I would never have to ask... I have a game coming up this friday and the friday after that for which I'll be the GM and I have no clue what to do. I have no idea whatsoever. I urgently need a run, a scenario, a campaign, a theme... anything at all. All the ideas you have, toss 'em out!

Anyways, let me provide with some info on what I have and what I need...
The story started about half a year back when I tried to get together a new group for SR and actually succeeded. I got together a couple of friends and we had a few meetings. In these last six months we've only met about four times to talk about what we all want from the game, come up with characters and such. Then came summer, vacations, several people changing appartments and moving away from home... In short: things have become quiet.
Originally we have been aiming for a biweekly rythm but I don't think this will work out even if we manage to play regularly. The main reason for this is that my most experienced player just moved to a city about 500 Kilometers and a lot of nasty traffic jams away from here. And here in Germany that is quite a trip, so he will likely not be around to often. He sais he wants to be there every other week but I kinda doubt that he will manage to do so. Not because he doesn't want to but because it's a hard thing to do.
Aaanyways... he's gonna be here the next two fridays, which means: time for Shadowrun!
Unfortunately I have been pretty out of touch with Shadowrun the last few months. I still know the world and the setting and the basic rules but most of the special rules give me the creeps now and I can't come up with a run for the life of me! I'm totally out of synch and stuck for ideas!

Alright, to give you a better idea of what I need, here's a description of the group:

Felix: He's playing an elf decker. He described the character as slightly crazed. A thrillseeker. I don't know a whole lot more about him, unfortunately, and neither does Felix, I believe. All I know is that he's slightly crazed, always on the look for a thrill but not so stupid to risk his life beyond reasonable limits (yea, I know...)

Falko: A grumpy dwarfen streetsam. We had a lot of Legolas & Gimli action going on between him and the decker in the one improvised test session we played. He's the archetypical dwarf. I have to mention that Falko is more of a high fantasy fan so this was to be expected. This guy is highly cybered, always on collision course with everyone and generally everything but easy-going.

Anja: She's gonna be playing a shaman. We originaly had a pretty stirred up background for her with domestic violence in a stringent traditional japanese family and all that stuff. She was following the idol of the seductress then. I'm not sure she's gonna stick with this though. Might get a new character till friday. She will definately be playing some kind of shaman though. She's generally more of the mellow and peaceful type but can be pretty nasty if she wants to but in a more subtle way.

Jana: She's just new to the group and still undecided as to what kind of character to play. Probably a sam or merc and probably something weird and far-out. She said she wanted maybe some kind of crazy orc or troll or so. We'll come up with a character for her during the course of this week.

And last but by far not least - Timo: He's the guy who just moved away. He's playing a face/sniper. Ex-Negotiator for a private security corp. His background is pretty standard but nicely thought out and has a few loose ends for me to (ab)use. He has been born and raised in the corp as a good corp child. Originaly born in Germany he moved to seattle with his family due to relocation by the corp. His brother didn't want to come along and actually ran away on the day of departure - loose end number 1. One day his parents died in a car accident as they where heading for a congress, or so he was told. He later found out that all was a lie but never found out the truth - loose end number 2. His original occupation was sniper but the death of his parents caused him to change from that to negotiator. He got maried and has a twelve year old daughter - plot hook/loose end number 3. Some day he left the corp for the usual reasons (his parents, mobbing and all that) and did so in a particularly stylish manner. He arranged for his own death. Made quite a few enemies in the corp, became unpopular, became fat, and was in general behaving strangely. Then he built his own car bomb and drove out to do some running, IIRC. Well, he blew up the car and vanished. He wrote up a long story which moved me to tears. He's got some serious talent. The way he described his preparations for leaving his wife, how he kissed his daughter goodbye, the last memory of his family, all without them knowing that he wouldn't return. I'm really looking forward to seeing this character in action. Lots and lots of potential here!

So, yes, this is the team. We have played one spontaneous test session so far. It went... well. They where all behaving pretty professional yet somewhat clueless. They are inexperienced and still have to learn. The roleplaying was a lot better than I would have expected, which turned out to be a problem. In this session - which doesn't "count" for the actual game - the team didn't know each other and thus they where introduced to each other by the Johnson, which resulted in an utter lack of trust and a great deal of hostility during the game.
Therefore we have established that, for the actual game, the team members will just know and trust each other in order to create a more relaxed and more friendly and cooperative athmosphere.

Know this is the kind of run I have in mind: the story should be the center of attention. The fun thing should not be to decide which toy to apply to what situation and how many guards can be geeked in one night. The fun should come from exploring the story and from making decisions that influence the story. I always like moral challenges. I do love horror and spooky scenarios. There should be some fighting to keep the sams happy but not too much and the few fights that do occur should be under very interesting circumstances and with some kind of "meaning" attached to them. As I said, the challenge shouldn't be a facility that is tough to enter with tight security. The fun should come from the setting, the mood, the NPCs and the story. And the characters should have a definite influence on the story. So I'm looking for a setting with a lot of potential and not a tightly pre-scripted run with lots of tactical spice and dice rolling.
I'm hoping for something evil that makes them shiver and fear the shadows on their way home, though this is not a must.

Somebody suggested something about sending the team into a molten-down reactor some time ago. I like the idea but can't quite make a complete scenario out of this.
What I'm looking for is some creative input to get me jumpstarted again. Any suggestion is welcome. Anything from a small fragment or idea to a complete pre-written campaign is alright (though none of the "official" ones please)

Thanks a lot in advance, I owe you one!

Man, just come up with a very skeletal story line and then just wing it from there. If you plan on these things too much they never work out.

Sure they do. I always tell people to plan, plan, plan. Does it mean you have to stick to the plan? naah. But it helps to have one, it keeps the story flowing in the right sense of direction.

Firstly, Nice to see you again Sandman, your presence has been missed.

You have been on a number of runs on thee boards that would be easily adaptable to table top. Assuming your players don't read the boards.

If your looking for horror, may I recommend, Horror Express. I can't get to the link right now but it would be easily adaptable. Beef up the gutter punks at the club, and Heidi's apartment, add some guards at the docs warehouse etc. Maybe have a run in with a gang at the Puyallup barrens. It would be fun and creepy.

Let me know what you do or if you are looking for something else.

hmmm let's see, we're rather heavy on mages and firepower... you're set in germany... Toxic shaman time!

send them into the SOX on a T-bird, have a rad shaman blow it out of the sky and spiral the plot out of control from there.... make it as cinematic as you can and they'll never know you didn't have a plan.

The problem with a plan is once you have it you feal the need to stick to it.

I never plan a campaign many other GMs I know have a similar policy. You determine the planes of the NPCs and organizations and let your protagonists run wild.

If you plan the campaign rather than the plots and the PCs do something unexpected there is a great temptation to railroad. If you plan the NPC’s plots it doesn’t matter what the PCs do your plans are still good.

Edward

thumbs up edward

Personally, I find my games work best when I use FrostyNSO's technique, on the other hand my man PLANS his games. It's strictly a matter of personal taste.

However, even if you use the "skeleton" technique you need a story...

hmm... the only experience I have with germany is running the adventure in the Harlequin campaign so if this is completely off base... sorry...

A toxic shaman isn't a bad idea... I like my villains morally ambiguous though. Toxies tend to be blatantly evil. Your choice if you use one.

How about this? Your characters are hired for a pretty complex run. Make it difficult. Hell, lets say the Johnson sets them up to fail. While the group is hiding out from local law/corp enforcers they stumble upon (are helped by?) a seemingly friendly group of people. Roll with it from here. ideally these friendly people should turn out to be your morally ambiguous antagonists. Instead of a nice cozy run your players are set into a fight with two factions probably for their own survival.


I'll probably think this sucks tomorrow morning, but for now I like it.

*edited for abuse of the english language*

What I've found best is to set up circumstances- on this day x will happen. on day 2 Y will happen etc, and bounce the players off it.

For a run, how about body guard work?
You're hired as local talent for some sweet you starlet with a good rep- think Lindsey Lohan or Hillary Duff. who's really a "Britney Spears slut in a box. Not only do you have to keep her safe from fans and maybe a serious run, she tries to slip out, a little drinking (or worse) keep her away from the paparazzi while doing osmething that would damage her good girl rep (Your guarding her rep as well as flesh). Just have an idea what would the schedule be for some pop star doing a pr tour in Seattle for a week?

Add a little spice and have her try to get her pop star boyfirend jelous by making a play for one of the runners. Now visaulize Justin Timberlake getting pissed with Avery Brooks and Brooks doesn't want to mess him up.

Conversly the group is hired to extract a sweet starlet for a rival corp. when they grab her, they discover that she is the one who hired Mr Johnson, she wantedout and away from the control of her stage mom who's driving her nuts and the corp, now you have to hide her for a week until she's 18 and can sign a contract herself with a new corp and cut out mom. Of course the old corp want their asset back and have access to lots of material links for a ritual sorcery search.

For a spooky horror game that emphasizes plot over action, throw a Wraith at them.
Joe Wageslave is a happy upper-middle-management company man. He love his job and always has a smile on his face. One day, he comes to the office smiling like he usually does, but he has a shotgun in his hands. He kills 27 of his co-workers before security takes him down. The autopsy reveals evidence of a type of influence spell, although its Astral signature has degraded to the point that it is barely identifiable.
The corp wants to know who brainwashed their employee and sent him on a killing spree and they want that mage and whoever hired him dead. The corp would prefer the killing to be brutal and public, so that everyone who considers doing something similar will think twice, but they still wat a level of denibility should a SNAFU occur, so they hire your runners.

Of course, the culprit is not a magician, but a Wraith. As the players investigate, it will influence those around them, turning ordinary people into homicidal maniacs. Anyone could attack them at anytime. They don't know if the girlscout selling cookies door to door is harmless or if she has a roomsweeper under her skirt. Every twist and turn will make them more and more confused and almost ever clue will lead to a dead end.
If the runners are smart, they'll eventually discover the truth. If not, the Wraith may frame an innocent person and continue to get away with its evil deeds.

Straight from MLJBB to the web to you: A gift from Dashifen.

Runs on the Fly

A buddy of one of the PC's contacts runs a sim-porno ring. He's got a big movie coming up but his star girl has decided to give up the cram and get out of the industry. Now she's missing.

The PC's need to track her down and get her back on cram, and back in the movies.

Wow, thanks for all the responses! Makes me feel good to be back again.
And thanks Shadow. Nice to know someone remembers me and actually noticed my absence.

Now, let's try and answer all this...
First of all, let me clear out a small misunderstanding here. The game is set in and around Seattle. While Timo's character, Frank Tannberg, was born in Germany, they were moved to Seattle by their corp. His brother ran away prior the departure and thus remained in Germany. His fate remains unknown.
And I don't think of my team as combat and magic heavy. So far we have one sam and one shaman. One player is still undecided. The sniper isn't really a fighter any more. He was in the past but is now more pacifist and more of a face/negotiator.
And I want to emphasize again that most of the players (actually all of them but Timo and me) are newbies. They still have to learn most things about shadowrun, so it shouldn't introduce too many intricate details and exotic things. A few are okay but not too much. Don't wanna overload them.

Alright, now to the runs...
Shadow is right. I certainly know how to GM. What I desperately need is a basic story. My general style is to have a skelletal story and then just see where it goes but I still do need this story.

Horror Express, while being a great game, isn't quite what I was looking for though I might still use it as a basis for the game. The only thing being "horror" about the game was the finale when we stumbled upon the vampire's lair.

Now, when I say spooky and horror I mean things like Cthulhu or movies like Signs, the Sixth Sense or The Village (which I haven't watched yet) or, if anyone here as seen it, The Game with Michael Douglas and Sean Penn - great movie! Vampires are always nice too and toxics can also have a nice twist, even though I do like my villains to be somewhat amiguous. Once I have the time I have to dig out this run about the reactor... it's on the boards here somewhere...

I never thought much of body guarding runs, especially for starlets. Who in their right mind would let a movie star be guarded by a bunch of thrown together criminals? And knowing my group I don't think it lends itself well for bodyguarding or that we would have fun with it. Sorry Snow Fox, but still a cool idea.

Courier runs can be cool but need that certain twist in my oppinion. Like "get this coffin from here to there but for god's sake DONT' OPEN IT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!!"

Dashifen, your run generator - while being a neat thing to have - didn't really help me much. It does provide you with a few basic decision but those are generaly the easy ones. It doesn't provide me with any kind of story.

Ok guys and gals, keep it coming!

I have to say, Shadow, that I do sort of agree with those saying 'just wing it'. At least, that is what seems to work best for me. Of course, there also needs to be a focus, no matter how temporary or trivial it may be. One spark with which the whole powderkeg gets lit.

One way is to have them all en route to a meet somewhere in the middle of nowhere about an as-yet-undisclosed job. The transport gets FUBARed in very hostile conditions, and the group has to deal with whatever you can think of to spring on them. After all, this isn't a long-term campaign, and if it should turn out to be one in the future the results of this type of run will not have much affect on the campaign as a whole. It's also easy to wrap up in a couple of sessions, without worrying about goals being completed, etc. If they live past the last encounter (whatever that might be), they succeeded in their mission.

You could add further complications by introducing other seriously wounded survivors, either from the wreck or along the way.

Okay here is one for you I called it "le Demon dans la Peau" (the Demon Under The Skin")

It's a very short resume of an adventure I wrote a few years back. The main villain is loosely inspired by Graham Masterton's novel Tengu

the characters are "hired" by Michael Okada, an astral mage (a well-off freelance enchanter and magical consultant) whose physical body has just been killed and taken away while he was wandering the Astral Plane (that's for the horror-spooky theme: being hired by a dead man who's telling tales is not something they should be used to): he offers his bank account numbers and his enchanting shop in exchange for a pledge to avenge his death...which makes for the moral aspect you want to infuse into your game (I appreciate that, too)

The story thus far in a nutshell: a long time ago, in 12th century feudal Japan, at the end of the Heian period, somewhere near Sendai in the northeast of Honshu,Okada Satsume, a sorcerer managed to conjure a powerful ally spirit only known as Tengu to be used as a weapon for the Okada Shinjei, daimyo of Clan Okada against the rival Clan Yamagashi and Akoru. Its True Name was kept as a precious secret, hidden in a tatoo, which was etched on the sorcerer's son Heichiro's skin. When Satsume was killed in 1184,the Tengu became a wrathful free spirit but his son managed to use the Name to take control of it. From then on, the terrible secret was transmitted from generation to generation...then as Magic waned until leaving our world, the secret of the Tengu was eventually forgotten while the obscure tradition of the family tatoo subsisted...

Shoju Tsuma, a Mitsuhama mage who is very keen on medieval history and finding evidence of pre-Awakening magic happened to uncover the legend. Firmly convinced of its veracity, he went through complex genealogical research and finally identified the japanese wizard's great-great...grandson.
Thinking this to be the access ticket for the select MCT Research Unit 13, Tsuma hired a group of runners to whack the man and bring back his body (not to be damaged under any circumstances).
The runners manged to kill the guy but had to flee and leave the corpse when a heavily armed Lone Star patrol arrived on the crime scene alerted by a neighbour.
A few hours later, they broke into the local Lone Star morgue and stole the body killing the nightshift officer, Thomas Simpson.
Unknown to the body-snatchers, there was a witness who managed to hide when he heard some commotion. the guy, Trevor Riley, is a fledgling tatoo artist who regularly paid his buddy (the murdered officer ) to hone his tatooing skills at night on bodies destined to be cremated.
Now, the ambitious MCT mage is going to try to conjure the spirit using its True Name to try to enslave it. He will use Yakuza connections to get access to a nice safehouse large enough to trace the ritual diagrams and enact the ritual.

What the runners are supposed to do:
- find the body (go to the dead mage's home to find nothing except learn his body was transferred to the morgue)

- go to the morgue to discover there was some dirty B&E job done there a few hours ago (maybe two or three at most): an important clue found there: cigarette butts of a different brand that the ones found on the nightshift officer's body (someone else was there) and a small vial of a special ink (tatooing ink) imported from China ("Ki-rin" ink or some fancy name you'll whip up on the fly). It must lead your players to understand someone was doing some extra-hour tattoing here and that it could be someone other than the dead morgue employee.

- Thanks to the "ki-rin" ink vial, a quick Matrix search (hacking the Ink Producer in Shanghai) will enable the decker player to come up with a list of people who regularly order this ink through the Matrix. One of them is "Palimpsest", a tatoo parlor in the district (choose your district).

- A quick visit to the guy's flat with some little action (the guy is hiding with a gun in his hand , ready to blast his friend's killers) will allow the players to get the whole story with a rather good description of the hitmen.
Some good legwork should allow the players to get the names of the other runners (Nezumi, a japanese physad, Sonja Sledge, a street sam choke-full of steroids and Evan Bailey, a nasty Canadian shamanic aspected magician following Boar )and allow them to find them.

- You can improvise a good chase/combat scene with the runners (which may or may not stick together depending on your team's skills). Then they can use their best Interrogation skills/Mind Probe/gun-in-the face technique to get the info on their employer: then they get the Mitsuhama mage's name and learn the guy was after a body (an intact body with a weird japanese irezumi-like tatoo)

- Next is finding Shoju Tsuma. He works at the Cavilard Center (hard to break in) but can also be found at some trendy bars or nightclubs...the team decker can (that's what happened in my game) try to search a few of the mage's ritzy hang out hosts to see if he doesn't have a reservation on a close date to follow him.

- They can follow the guy (with his bodyguards) to the warehouse and (hopefully disrupt the ritual) with a few MCT mages and Yak kobuns just for fun.

The adventure should have a strict timeframe. If the runners don't find the warehouse on time, then the mage will have a nasty magic dreadnought at his disposal (the spirit's materialized form looks like a scary Japanese Warrior in full o-yoroi armor with katana and stuff).
That's exactly what happened in my game. they managed to catch the mage's limo after a grueling car chase and had a hell of a surprise when the Tengu appeared and joined the fray.

A nice sequel to this adventure (if they don't prevent the ritual) will be for the team mage to hunt for the Spirit's True Name in the Metaplanes. I wote a nice metaplanar adventure in roleplaying format instead of the dice-roll format for Astral Quest weaving elements related to the spirit's history and creation).
After the Quest (which could be quite high because of the Spirit's Force: a Force 5 Spirit Energy 4 Spirit ), they learn the name and a disturbing fact : the Tengu's essence is trapped in an item (Hidden Life).
- scenes during the Astral Quest can give a hint as to the nature of the receptacle where the Essence of the Tengu is trapped.
- by searching through the Matrix in Japanese historical databases, they can find details about the history of Clan Okada, and find references of a katana.
- by searching through the Matrix in museum and auction sales databases they can find the trace of the weapon , an old masamune weapon which belonged to a weapon collector in Germany (they can contact the man to find it was sold to a private collector in CFS, someone by the name of Kemo Kellerman, CEO of a small security firm providing bodyguards and escorts to the Studio City Jetset. Kellerman used to be a merc in MET 2000 (a tough customer)
- then they have to fly to LA and break into Kellerman's house to steal the weapon in order for the mage to go through a final AstralQuest to summon the Tengu to destroy it.

- I added a few complications: namely they had to do a short run for the local LA fixer before getting the info and various passes to get through Studio City gates: a short trip to retrieve some cargo lost somewhere in the Anza Borrego desert ; there they had to fight a Nomad-possessed smuggler who had decimated his whole team.

- their Fixer a Troll named Chotta Rey, put them in touch with an electronic-burglar specialist named Ears. In fact, Ears is an agent of the Atlantean Foundation' Mystic Crusaders, who was alerted by Rey to the strange nature of the runners' target. The Atlantean Foundation was alerted by the runners Matrix search (The Walls Have Ears rule ) and is interested in snatching the Sword under the runners'nose by pretending to work with them. You can have Ears's Crusader buddies spice things up after the burglary (I had Mist , a Grade 3 Snake Shaman and Flame, a street samurai)

Anyway, In hope it was not too tedious and too long...have fun if you try it...if you need any additional info on the run, just mail me...(and sorry if my English is not always top-class, I'm just a French Runner y'know...)

The characters are hired by O.R.C. to investigate who is behind a number of murders in carbonado. They find that all the deaths were caused when the victims (all casual chip users) slotted 2xS instead of their favorite cal-hot.

The chips were all sold by a new organized crime syndicate operating out of the Barrens. This group is just as bewildered about the bad chips as the characters. Investigations into this new group find some mysterious financial backers, one of whom turns out to be a major magical researcher at (oh hell, I forget what the major university is in seattle is called... I'll just say the university washington).

Anyway the point is this researcher is using university funds to stage seemingly random murders around the city as part of a massive ritual to do Very Bad Things. He's well connected and has powerful magic protections making it difficult for the characters to handle this situation directly meaning they'll have to find some creative ways of dealing with the threat.

Here's a good run for 2-3 players:

A Pound of Flesh

The Fixer calls the 'runners in for a job. Each of the runners owes the Fixer in some way (a botched job, an emergency patch-up, some new bit of SOTA, etc.), and now he's calling in his markers. The runners are expected to work gratis, thus paying off their debt to the fixer. If that doesn't inspire them to do the job, mention that there may also be a few nuyen in it as well, but there's a catch (isn't there always?).

The Client is a business associate of the Fixer, and a degenerate gambler. He owes money to half the loan sharks in town, including the Fixer. Just as the Fixer was about to make an example of the client by scattering his internal organs across the Barrens, he shows up with the one and only winning ticket to the local Yakusa numbers lottery. If the ticket is valid, it could mean 200,000 nuyen to the client, just enough to pay off his debt and save his life.

The gig is a simple bodyguard job: get the Client to the numbers house, validate the ticket, collect the winnings, and return him (alive) to the Fixer's joint to pay off.

Hooks:
The Client has a big mouth, and half of Seattle knows about the money and that he's asked the Fixer to help him collect. Expect an ambush. Hell, expect several of them: gangs looking to make a little easy money, rival organized crime organizations trying to hurt the Yak's numbers biz, crooked Lone Stars looking to make a deposit in their IRAs, maybe even a pack of ghouls scoping out a midnight snack...

The Fixer waits until the Client is out of earshot before adding one more stipulation to the contract. If the ticket is a fake, he wants the Client whacked. The body should be left somewhere in Everett where it can be found, an example of what happens to people that don't pay up. He's willing to pay 25K to the team, as well as absolving them of any debts.

The Yak doesn't particularly feel like paying up, so they'll claim the ticket is a forgery. Unless the team's decker can dig up the video records proving the Client made the purchase, they'll walk away empty-handed (or bloody-handed if they try to force the Yak to pay up).

The Client tries to cut a deal with the runners to not turn him into the Fixer after collecting. He'll give the team 50K if they'll just look the other way and let him go.

Enjoy.

As an alternative --
Here are 501 Shadowrun Run Ideas. They are just the creative spark -- you still have to do the work to create a run.

If you don't want to create a run, you can download adventures you find on Official Shadowrun Resources Page (search for "Gamemasters Only") which includes the Shadowrun Missions adventures.

You can also purchase books with pre-made adventures in them. I have a lot of them.

so nobody liked the sim-porn ring idea of mine? c'mon people!

Alright, some good ideas in here!

Fortune's survival game is kinda neat but I'm not sure if I can run it properly i.e. make it interesting enough and lift it above a simple sequence of combat encounters. Especially since there'l be at most two fighters in a five-person-party.

Ombre's run sounds pretty cool. I'm thinking about modifying it a bit to suit my needs but don't have a clear idea yet but it sounds good. I especially like the idea of the runners being contacted by a dead person!
I just have to get past some glitches in the design. My main concern is that the "ghost" of the mage won't be able to live for too long without the body, so the runners only have 5 or so hours to complete the run so that the ghost can give them the access to his account. And if he pays them upfront I can see it happening that they take the money and don't give a damn about this ghost's revenge.
It's a good idea to work with though.

heliocentric - I like the idea. Mysterious murders for a great ritual and stuff sounds great, I'm just worried that my group of newbies will not be able to draw the right conclusions and get the right ideas of how to dispose of the threat.

Spooky - this will probably work as a nice introduction. It's plain and simple. Maybe a bit too simple. I have yet to find a way to add some "spice" to it (most likely in the form of encounters on the way, some weird situations to add in here or there)

Frosty - Sorry, forgot to mention your idea. Didn't do that on purpose! I ran something similar a few years back, just the other way around. However, only one of those players who where with me back then will be in my group.

Now, the situation has changed a little. Falko, the Samurai, will most likely not be there this friday. So I basicaly need two runs, which can each be wrapped up in a single session, where the second run still meets all the specs from my first post, but the first run needs to be solveable without any combat, yet still have the potential for a few cool fights. Getting tough, hu?

I guess I need to brood a little more over your ideas. If anybody still has some, keep 'em coming I really like to read what all you crazy little minds can come up with