Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: phydaux42 on <06-12-13/1244:15>
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Give me your best Milk Runs - Quick & easy runs to make some fast cash.
And if you're sly, throw in the plot complication that turns it from a Milk Run to a Blood Bath. LOL!
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I'll throw one to start. I call it Wrong Way of the Gun.
A local wannabe rocker band hires the team as "show muscle" for a sit down meeting between them and another band, over who gets to play what gigs when and where. The meeting is deep in Orktown at a well known nightclub, and will be moderated by the club owner. He brings his own muscle.
Everything is going fine. All parties are talking rationally. But the lead singer of your band brought his girlfriend with him, a short, small girl with a HUGE mouth. She starts bragging about how her boyfriend has the best cyberware, is the best singer in the world because of his built-in Autotune, etc. She is loud, obnoxious, and WILL NOT SHUT UP.
Finally the leader of the other band looks at the leader of your band and says "Shut that cunts mouth or I'll come over there and fuckstart her head!" As he does this you can see the rival band members and the club muscle drawing clubs, chains, and other (nonlethal) weapons.
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I like the "plant several bugs/trackers on this guy, follow him around, and get his schedule and a list of contacts".
Classic start for a campaign, can get interesting by using things from personal background of runners or when they get spotted ... can get funny ("Blüe Oyster" anyone? ;))
And they may even get caught which can lead to all kinds of trouble/story hooks...
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I ran this shadowrun as the first easy run of a campaign. It's part Pink Mohawk, part social challenge, part "don't crap your pants" and you'll be fine. I didn't have a name for this mission, but in the spirit of this thread I will name it "A Boat Load of Taxes." There is no real legwork portion, as this is a milk run. Simply a Johnson meet, a likely fight, a minor electronic security system, and a "don't crap your pants" encounter with a police boat.
Mr. Johnson is actually named Stuart Glass and he doesn't hide this like typical Johnsons. He holds the initial meet in the rented back room of a nightclub called the Rook Squared (With the actual word Squared being a squared sign, as in the math notation). It is a club that caters to science geeks, chess geeks, sci fi geeks, and geeks in general. There is a slight bias by the staff against non geeks, but it should not be a challenge to get inside, inquire where Mr. Glass is, and get into the back room. The players should not be able to get anything larger than a light pistol inside though. This is one way they can fail to get in there. Extremely lethal cyberware will be detected probaly by scanners and make the staff nervous. However, they will calm down if Mr. Glass' name is dropped and and ask him about the runners, at which point staff security guards will escort the runners to the back room. The only way the runners will fail to get back there is if they are ridiculously stupid and pink mohawk. Feel free to add complications if you wish at this point, such as making it harder to get back there.
Stuart Glass is a Fed (An agent of the UCAS federal government in Seattle. Specifically he is an elite auditor agent for the IRS) He is every stereotype you can think of about a tax geek. He is dressed conservatively in a gray suit. Has a severe haircut, glasses. He's a Human about 50 years old. He talks like Ben Stein as the boring economics teacher from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Stat wise, he is not all he appears. He does indeed have a high logic attribute and accounting skill. However, he also has the typical stats of an elite agent. Use Company Man or the equivalent. If the characters are stupid enough to attack him they can probaly kill him, but it will get nasty. And it will destroy their reps. So, hopefully they aren't that dumb. They weren't in my game.
Mr. Glass wants them to steal a boat from a UCAS citizen who is way behind on their taxes. The boat is located on a dock on a private island in the Puget Sound. (This is a Seattle based campaign) Mr. Glass will provide both a boat and a pilot. It will be easy to get there he says. (It is easy to get there when I ran it. You can make it harder as a complication if you wish) The target is rich and thus has very good security and huge bribes to the cops. However, Mr. Glass has his own connections and will interfere somewhat with the police responses. As for actual island defenses, the target's mansion will be heavily defended, as the owner is paranoid about the mansion being robbed or attacked. Mr. Glass tells the runners to not go near the mansion. If the runners are stupid enough to do this, they will fail at the run and possibly die. (If your game is pink mohawk and your runners are crazily pink mohawk, they can assault the mansion and possibly win. If so, they can loot the place if they have time. Do what you wish in your own campaigns you pink mohawk wackos! But you will be forced to design the mansion defenses and what loot is in there)
Mr. Glass tells them there is security on the boat, both alarms and guards. Probaly about 10. (This is true for the most part. The guards can be anything you wish. I had two teams of 6, and one elite. The regular guards I used similar to rookie cops. The elite I used similar to a veteran cop. He has level 1 wired reflexes and a smartlink. All the guards had smartlinks only. Mostly submachine guns and armored jackets all around. The boat has both an electric trap and an alarm system on it. Not too difficult, but at least some electronics or hardware skills will be needed. (Add as much security to the boat as you wish)
The boat and dock are located on one side of this small island, about 100 meters from the mansion. If the players go no where near the mansion they are mostly fine until they run into the guards. There is some slight vegetation, and runners can use stealth skills until they are 20 meters from the dock. (Mine did) There are 6 guards 20 meters from the boat. There are 3 guards on the dock, and 3 guards and an elite guard on the boat itself.
Assuming the players take care of the guards and the alarms, they just need to pilot the boat to the pier in Seattle Mr. Glass had laid down in their GPS. It is likely the players have no boat skills. Force them to make some default rolls, but don't make it too hard, as the route is easy.
The runners will be ordered to stop on the way by a police boat. (At least in how I ran it. Remove this encounter if you want to make this milk run even more easy!) In the way I ran this it wasn't really a true social test. It was more a "don't crap your pants" encounter and a tension builder. The cops have not been alerted that the runners stole this boat. (Stuart Glass used is Fed influence to stop that) It's just a routine stop. (Feel free to make it a social challenge if you wish)
The boat cops are slightly suspicious, but only slightly. They will demand to search the boat in a very forcefull manner. The cops know this is an illegal search, but they don't give a damn and suspect that most proper citizens will cave to this. They also know criminals often don't have SIN numbers and thus no rights. The smart move for the runners here is to simply let the cops search the boat. (My runners did this, fortunately) The cops will NOT search the runners themselves. (You can have them do that if you wish, but it could get very ugly, because the runners will almost certainly be hiding guns under their long coats. If the runners refuse the search, then this encounter will become a social challenge. They had better have a Face or at least a partial face to smooth this over. If the runners were stupid enough to loot the boat guards and thus have a dozen submachine guns stashed on the boat (And possibly their armored jackets) then the runners need to avoid a search and thus really need a Faceman.
If the runners succeed in stealing the boat and getting it back, they are paid 10,000 a piece and as a favor from Stuart Glass get a 10 % discount discount on lifestyle, tied into whatever fake ID they pay their lifestyle with. (Adjust this pay as you wish. I realize it's generous, but I ran this at the start of a campaign when I'm Mr. Smiley GM) The runners can negotiate the 10,000 pay up to 25%. They can not negotiate the lifestyle bonus.
The runners also gain Federal IRS elite auditor agent Stuart Glass as a connections 4, loyalty 1 contact. A very useful contact, especially if the runners have no federal government contacts.
The runners are paid at the dock when they deliver the boat, by some hired goons. There is no need for a second meet with Stuart Glass, unless you want one to happen for some reason.
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Giraffe, that's an awesome idea for a run and plenty of ways for things to go south. I might have to use this in my irl campaign.
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Your irl campaign? You're going to actually steal a boat?
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Your irl campaign? You're going to actually steal a boat?
We keep it real.
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Hey, I know guys who almost got arrested at a mall because they set up a face-to-face with a Johnson there. Airsoft guns, black coats, manilla envelopes and flash drives included. The bodyguards and general look of "This is sketchy" got mall security alerted and they quietly scattered.
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Hey, I know guys who almost got arrested at a mall because they set up a face-to-face with a Johnson there. Airsoft guns, black coats, manilla envelopes and flash drives included. The bodyguards and general look of "This is sketchy" got mall security alerted and they quietly scattered.
Ah, those wacky LARPers. Someone needs to do another "On the Run" video for SR 5. Hopefully with the runners being better armored so their bare arms aren't shot.
We used to beat each other with wooden weapons as teenagers. Even had a homebrew fantasy rpg system in place based loosely on what we had heard about Swordtag. I was the infamous Lightning Bolt Guy (
See Youtube), except I was fortunate not to get caught on camera and get laughed at by the entire country. (No costumes though) I'd throw old shotgun shells for magic missles and lightning bolts, and moss for sleep spells. Never did figure out area effects though.
I remember one time our strongest fighter getting angry after I got a hit in and knocking me to the ground with a wooden staff to the top of the skull. Crazy drek.
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That's the weird part. That piece of the run was the ONLY Larp'ed thing in the entire game. They just wanted a moment of full immersion. So real that they almost faced real consequences. I can't even stop laughing at imagining them getting caught.
"Sir, why is there a picture of a woman with a price tag at the bottom of the page in this manilla envelope?"
"It's my fiance, we took it for the game!"
"So you're hiring these men to kill your fiance?"
"NO, no... their characters are going to kill an NPC that looks just like her!"
"And you're going to pay them for this?"
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Funny someone would bring it up but our entire gaming group are avid larpers as well. :-D