[Jtuxyan]

Hey there! I'm going to be running a Shadowrun game soon. I've run Shadowrun before in the Pink Mohawk style, so I'm comfortable with the rules, but this will be my first time running a serious Black Trenchcoat game, and I want the adventures to reflect that. I've got a quick writeup of the two first runs below, and I wanted to get some feedback. The first run is intended to be an introductory run to get the group together, the second is their first real job. Tell me what you think!

A Pair of Ghouls

The Introduction: The usual middle-man to a number of the PC's approaches them and explains that he has a job in the works. A big job. Top-rate security, over 100,000NY in it, the sort of work Shadowrunners dream about. Unfortunately, it'll require a team to pull off, and he doesn't have a team—just the party. On paper, they've got all the skills they need, but he needs to know they can work together before he throws something big their way. So, he's got a little test run for them. It only pays 1000NY each, but hey, it's easy money right?

The client is the family of one Leela Leszek, who was found dead last week. According to the Lone Star report, she walked into a HMHVV clinic to get tested, and the test came back positive for Strain III. Upon being informed she only had two weeks at most before she started showing signs of ghoulification, she left the facility, and was later found dead in the street. Autopsy report confirmed the cause of death as poisoning by a combination of temazepam (sleeping pills) and alcohol. With no evidence of foul play, Lone Star ruled it a suicide.

Her family feels differently. They knew Leela, and to them, the idea that she'd kill herself over HMHVV is absurd. Her family and friends were extremely supportive of ghoul rights, a view she shared, and more to the point, the suicide method makes no sense. Leela was a teetoatler with a strong personal dislike of alcohol. The idea that she'd kill herself by downing pills and hard liqueur is absurd. Other parts of the report also done add up -- like the fact that Leela's family wasn't contacted until two full days later, when a Jane Doe facial profile search turned up their daughters ID online. The Lone Star report offers no explanation for why she wouldn't be carrying her ID.

Someone murdered Leela.  Find out who and put a bullet in them. It's not clear if Lone Star is on the take, or just incompetent, but either way, the police will be of no help to you on this one.

Behind the Scenes:

As always, the easy money ain't. Leela isn't the first victim, but tracking down the killer will prove extremely difficult. There are three antagonists here—a mysterious decker known only as "The Client," Avery Judoc (coroner at the general hospital), and Ray Javez (a stupid kid working at the clinic).

Things got started a few years back, when Avery noticed that when patients were diagnosed with conditions that precluded their organs or cyberware being re-used (such as HMHVV) they'd be sent down to the morgue with all those valuable bits still on them. Avery started small, waiting for a patient to be mis-diagnosed, and then stealing their organs and cyberware and selling them to a yakuza friend he had. Eventually though, he got greedy and impatient, and decided to cut out the middle man. He murdered several people he knew would be brought into the hospital, using a combination of drugs that would leave their organs intact, while causing them to test false-positive for a variety of conditions that preclude organ or cyberware transfer.

Things changed from run-of-the-mill serial killing however, when Avery was approached over the Matrix by an unknown party who just called himself "The Client." The Client offered to ensure that a large supply of dead bodies with intact cyberware would be coming into the morgue, falsely diagnosed with HMHVV. In return for this service, The Client wanted a cut off the top. Avery was at first reluctant, but when The Client made it clear that he had enough proof of what Avery had been up too to see him fry, Avery quickly agreed.

The Client has held up his end of the bargin with two quick computer hacks and one unwitting stooge. Ray Javez is the stooge. He's a kind-of-stupid volunteer at the clinic who only does his job by skillchipping. He's also a huge fan of spy films, and an old-USA conspiracy fanatic who believes that the CIA secretly still exists and will one day reunite the country. Approaching Ray online, The Client had little difficulty playing into his delusions, and convincing him that he'd been recruited as a 'secret agent' to go on various 'missions.' The missions are mostly time-wasting nonsense, but occasionally, Avery will be asked to swap one of the clinic pills for an identical fake. He has no idea that the fake is a time-delayed poison capsule that kills them a few hours after they leave.

The computer hacks are twofold. First, a hack on a number of small time street docs equipment, causing healthy people to be mis-diagnosed as possible HMHVV carriers and sent to the clinic. Second, the clinics computers are set to detect someone who lists no next of kin, no contact information, no one they've been in contact with, and who has no ID. Once it detects such an individual, Ray gets his orders to make the swap.

That night, Leela went to her usual street doc—a family friend—for a minor health problem, and was shocked when he told her she needed to get tested for possible ghoulification. Embarrassed and ashamed, she didn't bring her ID, and declined to give any information, lying about a lack of friends in the hope that her family wouldn't find out. This triggered the program, Ray made the pill swap, and Leela died. In order to track down her killer, the PC's will have to do a clever matrix run, notice the trend of dead young people with valuable cybernetics, and finally, engaged in a little gunplay with the corner.

The Client, of course, simply vanishes as soon as he realizes the heat is on -- never to be caught.

[Jtuxyan]

Compound X

The Introduction: Having done well on the previous run, the party is rewarded with a chance at some real work. Meeting with their usual middle-man, he gives them the full story.

The client has chosen to remain anonymous this job, but the middle-man has confirmed that the money is in escrow, so they're not screwing around. The target is Veritas Designer Genetics, a small subsidiary of the Evo Corporation. They do fully custom gene-tweaks and bioware for the rich and connected, lavishing attention on those who consider even Alpha+ quality wares to be a little too much. The number of mages they have as clients speaks to the quality of their work, as their rolls of beautiful and wealthy clients speaks to their artistic taste.

The roll of clients now includes one Oskar Colin, Vice-President of Retail Biotechnology at Evo. After years of not using his own products, he's finally relented and decided to get a little work done, including a number of anti-aging treatments. He just finished his first appointment, and Vertias is putting together his series of injections. His next appointment at Veritas is in three weeks.

The client wants one of the injections he is to receive to be contaminated with a substance they have provided, just called Compound X. The client has said that Compound X is not a poison, does not have any obvious effect on people it's injected in, and is very difficult to detect, and so the client doesn't care if you also get a lot of other people injected with it. All that matters is that Oskar Colin's sample is contaminated when he arrives for his appointment.

It'd be a pretty straightforward run, except for two problems. First, Veritas is just up the street from a Lone Star armed response center, and they have a double-plus platinum contract. If any alarm goes off, the party will be up to their eyes in cops almost immediately. Second, is the price tag. The client is willing to shell out 100,000NY to *each* shadowrunner to see this job done properly. Oh, and one other thing. The client warns that Lone Star isn't the only security on the premises.

Behind the Scenes:

The clients motivation in this case is straightforward. Compound X is peanut extract, and Oskar Colin is allergic. The client wants Veritas to publicly kill (or nearly kill) their immediate superior, causing their stock to plummet. The client will have short-sold Veritas before that happens of course, letting them clean up with a tidy profit.

The tricky part comes in getting into the Veritas building. This isn't a high-security corporate fortress—the company only employs about fifty people, including six security officers—but there's a complicating factor. Their head of security is an ex-Shadowrunner, who takes his job very seriously. Going by the name F. Dico (an obvious pseudonym, as it's latin for "one without a name."), he spends his free time plugging security holes and rigging the building with an ever-growing number of sensors, redundant cameras, and drones. Key systems are knocked off the matrix. Paydata is secured behind physical key-and-tumbler locks as well as electronic security. Cameras and door locks have independent recording systems that cannot be remotely erased. This building isn't a fortress, but with Lone Star that close, it might as well be.

The one flaw in the building's security is that, as far as it's security staff know, there's not anything that valuable there. The client medical data they're protecting is somewhat valuable, but it's not world-shaking stuff. They're there to protect against thieves and employee embezzlement. An actual shadowrunning team could knock them right over.

The vial(s) the group needs to access are kept in the lowest level of the building, in a clean room behind two armed guards. There are essentially two ways the party can make the run. The first is to find a way to get down that corridor without setting off any alarms. The second is to find a way to get a legitimate pass to access that room, which requires navigating the upper levels. The impossibility of getting onto the campus un-recorded means the party will have to either make extensive use of drones, or send in a face under a legitimate pretense.

[pariah3j]

I rather like the idea of Compound X - I think something very similar will be right up my players alley. Consider it stolen 

[Bewilderbeast]

These both look really good! I especially like Compound X.

A Pair of Ghouls looks great, too, but sounds a little complex. It also involves straight-up wetwork, which might be a little intimidating for a first run, but as long as your players are onboard that should be fine. I think you should prepare for two additional possibilities:

1) Your players (or their characters) don't investigate deep enough, and believe that Ray Javez is the real culprit. They off him, then dust their hands and say, "That's that." You need to figure out ways to make it clear that's not the whole story without beating the players over the head with it.

2) The Client gets caught. Things like Trace Icon do exist, and it's possible that your shadowy hacker is uncovered a little early. Obviously, he's a Big Bad type you want to have escape to leave a little mystery, so you'd be excused if you fudge the dice rolls a little bit. But I'd strongly consider how you want The Client to make his exit, other than "the PCs simply don't find him" because that's not very satisfactory.

My recommendation? If they do somehow trace his physical location, the team can rush over to a crappy bolthole apartment. Busting in, they find the place completely clean, except for a low-grade cyberdeck running an Agent program, laced with databombs. The Client, hacker par excellance that he is, was using a proxy.