Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Phylos Fett on <10-09-11/0702:08>
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Okay - what is your favorite opposition to throw against a team of 'runners? Do you prefer Critters, Gangs (or a particular one), Private Security (of a particular type), Lone Star/Knight Errant, a Megacorporation (or a particular one), or something else?
Let's hear what you like as a recurring theme, or even something that finds its way into every campaign you run.
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Current game:
A Humanis offshoot that calls themselves Humanity First, they tend to wear red jackets, hoodies or at least a red lapel pin or tie. The higher ranked members tend to be well connected men with clean hands and good alibis, while they have middlemen focus on recruitment of SINless, disenfranchised humans from the sprawl with anger and desperation to belong to something in equal measure.
Armor vest and machine pistols are their favorite toys, many of their street level "soldiers" also carry a few doses of cram.
I like them because they range from little more then a vicious, raciest street gang up to slick political players. Their hate of magic, metahumans and 'race traitors' means it's easy for them to come into conflict, and their basic soldiers are disposable assets that don't spark a serious investigation if runners have to kill them. While the street smart SINless can come up with clever tactics, if they do something stupid or don't have much discipline with firearms, it's not a big deal.
Drones are also fun to use as antagonist, as nobody cares if they get killed and it allows hacker types to really shine. Relatively modest and cheap ones make a good encounter that will fight hard with no regard for self preservation.
Even before Shadowrun though, groups of thugs, badly trained mercenaries / militia and others armed with sub machine guns or machine pistols were a common foe in modern games. Automatic fire from such weapons puts an impressive amount of fire out and can deal serious injury, but player characters with decent body armor can typically survive such attacks relatively well.
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MCT and their Yak friends tend to be a pretty common one for me, based on a couple of factors. Their hardcore 0 zone attitude makes characters hate them. Add to that the traditional Japanese racism and the dislike grows. Heap on top of that the yakuza ties and the presence of MCT Department 13 and you have a corp that my players love to hate, that offers me as the GM, many different ways of challenging them.
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For the big picture metaplots I currently have a vampire cabal (similar to the idea of Vampire the game's city groups), a toxic shaman group (though very behind the scenes still), and a soon to be free spirit they have interacted with. They also just ran into some bug spirits for the first time and this may become part of a bigger plot soon.
For the adventure to adventure runs it has mainly been against lower tier corporations though they just finished a run against MCT.
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Ghouls and Halloweeners. Can't beat them in the month of October. Nor any other month. Need a quick baddie, Halloweeners or Ghouls.
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Honestly? I think my group's greatest enemies were themselves. :P
EDIT: As I said once: "You know, I could probably send you guys out for a can of Campbells Chicken Soup and you'd entertain me for hours."
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Yakuza, and specifically the Yak slavers.
Those were the games where the mission was simple: Kill everything in a suit. Whenever someone wanted to kill something and just blow off some steam we'd raid a bunraku den or transit warehouse. In one instance the Yaks had the poor idea to raid a run-down Puyallup Barrens building where an MPA cyber-adept was holed up. He led an especially ruthless counter-raid by the surviving friends and family of the women the Yaks took.
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Cyberzombies and Insect Spirits.
Yes, I'm a cruel and heartless GM.
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Cyberzombies and Insect Spirits.
Yes, I'm a cruel and heartless GM.
Stupid commute...
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Halloweeners and ghouls are my favorite but I can go along with insect spirits. Mason hates them with a passion. I love messing with him.
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Let's see, Lone Star, dock workers, security guards, the Mousketeer SWAT Team (No, I'm not joking), Nuns backed up by a Crucified Jesus (Who got angry enough to get down and start beating people with it), the San Diego Police Department (A wholly owned subsidiary of Aztechnology), a legion of ComiCon attendees in Batman Costumes, Lone Star again, Halloweeners, Halloweeners and Lone Star at the same time, a scary Eurotrash German... Trying to see if I forgot anyone...
EDIT: Oh, right, a surveillance team they know was tapping their communications and they talked openly about geeking them in plain language, referring to them as a Government Agency (Actually they were a lower-paid subsidiary of Lone Star. And they shorted out some electronics when that was just casually being discussed.).
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A.) Insect Spirits
B.) Opposing Shadowrun Team
C.) Insect Spirits
D.) Lone Star/Knight Errant
E.) Insect Spirits
F.) Ghouls
G.) Insect Spirits
H.) Gangers (low-power with hordes of members in the barrens usually)
I.) Insect Spirits
J.) Elite Corporate Strike Teams
Yes, I love Insect Spirits that much. I tend to run dark and gritty games filled with just as much sheer horror as suspense though.
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Lets see...based on what my current group has done in the past...in no particular order...
1) The Triads and the Yaks (mentioned togeather because this group managed to piss them off at the SAME TIME!)
2) Knight Errant (local LEOs in my game)
3) The Mafia
4) The FBI
5) The 475 Slayers (local go-gang)
6) The Glass Breakers (local street gang)
7) Doc Wagon (don't ask)
8) Renraku/Red Samurai
9) Black Market human-slave ring
10) Blood Mage Cabal
11) Freelance hit-teams
12) Salvation Army (no, I wish I was kidding)
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The Salvation Army? Really? Please elaborate on that one!
I like using corpsec and shadow denizens, with a smattering of spirits. In other words, I try not to make the opponents too out there except in special circumstances.
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*Sings "Onward Christian Soldiers" in the key of off*
Hey, in the Sixth World, the Salvation Army likely has a very powerful group of magicians and an artillery division.
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Nah, the SA just used some of their funds to hire a pretty twisted (and powerful) street shaman to constantly harass the runners with various spirits after the runners decided to be jackasses and turn bucket jacking into a fun sport and almost killed one of of the bucket jockeys. And please, I say that with joking respect because my family benefited from their kindness many years ago so please no flack.
Everywhere the runners went they either get narc-ed on, or they hear..."ding...ding...ding...ding". Night and day, "ding...ding...ding". Nothing sucks more than something tripping the alarm then in the middle of things the team hears "ding...ding...ding..." Bad thing for the team is that they pissed off so many people, no one will help them.
"Ding...ding...ding...."
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;D
Maybe they should try with an appology and a donation?
Rasmus
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;D
Maybe they should try with an appology and a donation?
Rasmus
What makes you think they haven't?
8)
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If they still a visited by the spirits their appology wasn't hearthfelt enough and the donation not nearly big enough.
They should try harder ;)
Rasmus
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Nah, the SA just used some of their funds to hire a pretty twisted (and powerful) street shaman to constantly harass the runners with various spirits after the runners decided to be jackasses and turn bucket jacking into a fun sport and almost killed one of of the bucket jockeys. And please, I say that with joking respect because my family benefited from their kindness many years ago so please no flack.
Everywhere the runners went they either get narc-ed on, or they hear..."ding...ding...ding...ding". Night and day, "ding...ding...ding". Nothing sucks more than something tripping the alarm then in the middle of things the team hears "ding...ding...ding..." Bad thing for the team is that they pissed off so many people, no one will help them.
"Ding...ding...ding...."
That is ... delicious.
And, I can picture spirits being summoned:
"What services do you require?"
"Find these runners and ring this bell all around them."
"That's it?"
"Yep."
"Heck, I'll do that for nothing."
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Swarms of devil rats with a demon rat or two thrown in.
You never know what's gonna pop out of that manhole you just moved the cover off of.
I haven't read the SR4 critter books yet, do demon rats exist? Nasty nasty things.
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;D
Maybe they should try with an appology and a donation?
Rasmus
Depending on the Officers (They're almost always married couples) they offended and are in charge of said Shadowrun, no amount of money would sway them.
Of course, there's always ways to repent... Doing God's Work is one of them. ;D
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I'm a big fan of using the Mafia and low-key street gangs. But then I tend to GM a game that feels more like something out of Snatch or Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, too. Namely seemingly unrelated stories that eventually merge together into a plot that wasn't so unrelated after all.
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These are pretty much standard in one of my games:
Lone Star/Knight Errant have always been one of my favorites.
Gangs are always good, as well as the Yakuza (sometimes starting with a gang that is funded by the Yaks, and then moving on to the Yakuza themselves).
For the megacorps I have a leaning towards Ares and S-K - they just seem like good opposition.
Depending on the mix of players, I like to throw in a Magic Group, and some sort of "mastermind"
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;D
Maybe they should try with an appology and a donation?
Rasmus
Depending on the Officers (They're almost always married couples) they offended and are in charge of said Shadowrun, no amount of money would sway them.
Of course, there's always ways to repent... Doing God's Work is one of them. ;D
No, I think God's I'm having too much fun with this and I think, they think, I forgot about it. Maybe when they start back up, Ill get a new bell. Suprisingly, the one I used dissappeared. How about a ringtone on my phone so they don't see it coming? Maybe just after they break into that high-security building with the HRT level security ...
"ding...ding...ding..."
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;D
Maybe they should try with an appology and a donation?
Rasmus
Depending on the Officers (They're almost always married couples) they offended and are in charge of said Shadowrun, no amount of money would sway them.
Of course, there's always ways to repent... Doing God's Work is one of them. ;D
No, I think God's I'm having too much fun with this and I think, they think, I forgot about it. Maybe when they start back up, Ill get a new bell. Suprisingly, the one I used dissappeared. How about a ringtone on my phone so they don't see it coming? Maybe just after they break into that high-security building with the HRT level security ...
"ding...ding...ding..."
And then there's the psychological game. Bring the bell, set it openly among your tools so they can see it, but don't use it. Toy with it, move it, whatever. -2 distraction, real-life.
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Nothing like doing God's work... ;D
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Nothing like doing God's work... ;D
Ah-men.
8)
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And then there's the psychological game. Bring the bell, set it openly among your tools so they can see it, but don't use it. Toy with it, move it, whatever. -2 distraction, real-life.
Briliant idea. Thumbs up ;D
Must buy a bell right now. Never know, when I need one 8)
Rasmus
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For me it all depends on who the player piss off :P
Currently I am throwing alot of "hired" hit squads mixed with Aztechnology "goons" at the players... but that is cause they just finished running "Ghost Cartels" and litterally went out of their way to piss off Ding Ramos (the aztech "druglord" boardmember!)
I have also used corp security to come after them after a bad run, or KE if they are making an ass of themselves on "protected" city streets. (cause KE couldn't give a rats ass what happens in the barrens... as long as it stays there!)
That's the great thing about SR, the players get to "choose" their antagonists through their own actions/inactions :D
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For me it all depends on who the player piss off :P
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I have also used corp security to come after them after a bad run, or KE if they are making an ass of themselves on "protected" city streets. (cause KE couldn't give a rats ass what happens in the barrens... as long as it stays there!)
That's the great thing about SR, the players get to "choose" their antagonists through their own action / inaction. :D
Very true; +1.
For me, it all depends on how the game is leaning, and what sort of mood I'm in. I tend to run what I myself want to see get the crap kicked out of -- insect spirits, snooty elven pricks (from either the Ancients if the PCs are comparatively weak, or from the appropriate Tir if they regularly kick ass), a particular corporate Johnson and his minions in both light and shadow, Aztechnology (always good for a laugh scream), whatever. I like kicking them where they aren't looking; suddenly their team safehouse is no longer in the street gang Buzzkill's territory, now it's in the territory of the Dom Nok Seoulpa Ring, and boy are they in it up to their necks now. Or almost as bad, the Buzzkills -- did I mention they're the ones hired to provide 'security' for the safehouse? -- need the team to help them against the Dom Nok before they get wiped out.
Change it up. Do three runs in Downtown Seattle's high-tech razor-edged shadows, then throw them to the wolves while running guns into Cascade Ork territory, where the shadows are much fuzzier. Let them pit themselves against Renraku's vicious secret battle to recover the contents of the secret Sub-Room 154-322a in the Arcology ACHE for several sessions, then interrupt their down-time to deal with a 'this ain't a run, this is daily bloody life' when an anti-consumerist anti-tech anti-urban group of young tribal shamans conjure dozens of spirits to rend their way through a high-class mall in Bellevue.
Keep the suckers guessing, and they'll come back for more.