[Zilfer]

Couldn't find one of these within the first few pages here, and it's been awhile since I've been on the forum. Been playing Pathfinder for about over a year and we finally finished the campaign in a large blast of a session. The group has decided Shadowrun sounds like fun so we are trying out the new 5e Shadowrun. I've seen quiet a bit of difference in the character creation, and a good deal of small rule changes that is making me reread most of the rules including Recoil and firing action. (Semi Auto can fire 3 shot*bullets* now as an attack option now? O.o')

Anyways wanted to lay out a plothook here so A) I don't loose it, and B) someone might meander into the topic and take a look and might have an ingenious idea to throw in there. C) someone might want to steal it.

If anyone has a topic full of plothooks I wouldn't mind reading through them since we are getting back into shadowrun and 1 week to prepare a campaign ain't enough but that won't stop me! XD





Plot: Michael "Saren" Cross has a problem with his oldest son. He has been hanging out with the wrong crowd, and he wants his son to come back and take over the family business. They had an argument a few months ago that had broken their relationship off for awhile, but Michael now wants to get his son back from the Black Claws. A gang out in the Barrens of Puyallup that hold a bit of territory to themselves ranging from about 136th to 132th street along Meridian. Their home base is an old movie theater Regal Longston Place, and the accompanying strip of old restaurants in the same parking lot.

MacCallister (Since I've used him in the past figured might as well reintroduce an Old Face ) heard the team was back in town finally, and wanted to offer them up a cake run/Milk Run. He has them meet with the Johnson and he's offering 20K-25K for the SAFE return of his son. He doesn't care about collateral damage to the gang. Depending on how the group goes about this it may get more interesting. If they go in guns blazing extraction they'll find Kyle Cross uncooperative and will try and escape back to them at any cost.

If they try the infiltration route or investigate they can eventually find out the REAL reason Kyle Cross is still with them. About the time Kyle and his father had a falling out, it turns out it was actually bout a girl he was seeing who was in the Black Claws. He was smitten with her but the father didn't want him marrying a low class criminal/filth/tramp. So he tried to forbid him from seeing her, because Mr. Cross thought she was just trying to get into the family for the money. Well Kyle didn't want to listen to this but obeyed his father at first.

Enter in Black Claw's Gang Leader who found out about this relationship and a 'little birdy' also told him about the inheritance money that Kyle would get if his father were to die. Well if he was part of the gang they could get him to upgrade quiet a bit of their own stuff and get some extra cash. They ended up holding Sophie Chang hostage as a way to black mail Kyle to join the gang otherwise they'd do some horrible stuff to poor little Ms. Chang. Enter in current time where Kyle is with them against his own will but won't leave the gang until she is safe.

If Black Claw's Gang leader finds out about the shadowrunner's plan he'll try and convince them to be on his side for he could offer them a portion of the money, drugs, and maybe a few illegal guns/hardware. Failing that he will try and kill them before they make a move on his gang. Throw in if they contact Mr Cross about Sophie, he'll tell them to "Kill the slitch." Kyle can come back home. So just what will they do? Multiple ways to get paid and morals to be questioned.




This is supposed to be kind of a beginning introduce rules to players again and get ourselves re-familiar with Shadowrun. I was aiming for a variety of ways to get the mission done, anyone got any thoughts or comments on it? This is my rough outline for Saturday's game.

[Tenlaar]

I am in absolutely no way a GM, but maybe it will help if I throw out the list of ways to try and accomplish the mission that immediately came to mind (as a player) while reading.  I'm going with the assumption that double crossing them and going rogue on your first run back in town with a fixer you have a previous relationship with isn't really an outcome you would want.

1. Of course there is guns blazing, probably will not end well.
2. Agree to work with the gangers, try to get one isolated that can be subdued and questioned for her location, go get her.  Would likely need to be somebody with some status in the gang.
3. Use astral projection to try and find her, go get her.
4. Attempt to hack any comms/computers that might have information, go get her.
5. Attempt a stealthy physical search and/or extraction from the sewers, if applicable.  So few people think about the sewers.
6. Find contact information with one of the above methods, convince the gangers guarding her (I assume she is being guarded) that they are getting an order from higher up to move her to a location of your choosing.
7. Return Kyle to his father by force, collect reward.
8. Return Kyle to his father by force, collect reward, give Kyle the option to pay you to get her out as well, go get her.

[Zilfer]

I am in absolutely no way a GM, but maybe it will help if I throw out the list of ways to try and accomplish the mission that immediately came to mind (as a player) while reading.  I'm going with the assumption that double crossing them and going rogue on your first run back in town with a fixer you have a previous relationship with isn't really an outcome you would want.

1. Of course there is guns blazing, probably will not end well.
2. Agree to work with the gangers, try to get one isolated that can be subdued and questioned for her location, go get her.  Would likely need to be somebody with some status in the gang.
3. Use astral projection to try and find her, go get her.
4. Attempt to hack any comms/computers that might have information, go get her.
5. Attempt a stealthy physical search and/or extraction from the sewers, if applicable.  So few people think about the sewers.
6. Find contact information with one of the above methods, convince the gangers guarding her (I assume she is being guarded) that they are getting an order from higher up to move her to a location of your choosing.
7. Return Kyle to his father by force, collect reward.
8. Return Kyle to his father by force, collect reward, give Kyle the option to pay you to get her out as well, go get her.

Haha! nice layout of the options. And yeah, I don't think they'll double cross the Fixer since they seemed to like MacCallister from previous times he had hired them. The way I think my group will probably go is to try and get Kyle they might gun's blaze at first, but I think one or two of them will have the idea to try and infiltrate first where I plan on dropping the GF bomb. I doubt they will report back to the Johnson "Mr. Cross" but if they do I wanted to add in that drama of... OK my employeer just told me to kill her but the son wants her alive to come with. Which should I do moral choice. I'm about 90% sure they are going to choose the moral high road, and even if they get her killed they won't fail anything.

I'm still undecided whether the girl really is just after his money? Or is really in love. xD Decisions Decisions.....

[Namikaze]

Sounds like a good plot.  I have a few questions about the Black Claws though:

Do they have any magical/matrix support?  Maybe a hot-shot decker or a couple wizkids?
Could it be possible for the runners to find out information about the enemies of the Black Claws, and use that to their advantage?
Who is the leader of the Black Claws, and what is his motivation?  Does he/she want to just acquire turf and survive, or is there something a little more noble involved?

Some ideas: perhaps the leader of the Claws is Ms. Chang's boyfriend, and he sent her to sucker this kid into falling for her.  Maybe Ms. Chang loves Kyle, but she's in an abusive relationship with the leader of the Claws?

Is Kyle addicted to anything?  Has the gang tried to force him into using BTLs or drugs against his will?  Why does he run from the runners if they come in guns blazing?  You know, other than "because I don't want to get shot."  Does he think the runners are cops, a rival gang, etc.?

Is there any chance that this could end with a great scene up on the roof of an apartment complex, with someone holding Ms. Chang over the ledge?  That would be ...epic.  Absolutely awesome.

Also, don't forget modifiers when you're dealing with combat - they can really up the panic levels of the players, even the playing field for the NPCs, and generally make things much more evenly matched.  You can use fewer NPCs if you make liberal use of modifiers, which makes for easier bookkeeping during combat.

[Zilfer]

Since no one is a Decker/Rigger I'm keeping Matrix to a minimum for now. We'll tackle that whenever we get a little bit more 'fresh' with magic and guns again.

Now that you mention it maybe I should add magical support to them since my group does have a mage, maybe a minor mage? 3-4 Magic and a few spells to sling. The Parties' mage is more of a "Neuromancer" as he calls himself which means he likes taking over people's minds and things like that. (cough cough highly illegal magic I would think)

Having him hooked on a drug because of it might be a decent idea as well just for pure flavor and maybe to show benefits of drugs vs hooked on drugs.

I would love for the players to investigate the black claws before going in guns blazing but we'll have to see how much they remember on how to play shadowrun. xD Or how easy they think this gang might be able to be toppled over.

I think it might take some doing but there's an apartment complex across the street I used to live in that's about 3 stories high... no real way on the roof but I can hand wave that and say they were rebuilt if a question comes up so that it had a flat top 'fourth floor' roof. Question though do you mean gun to head against the side of a roof or actually dangling Ms. Chang off the edge? If so how the hell do you get someone out of that? o.O'

Heh wouldn't it be twisted if Ms. Chang actually is trying to get rid of an abusive relationship and become the leader and/or put kyle as leader as he's much easier to control?

I think gang leader's main motivation is trying to collect the money from Kyle for when his dad dies... perhaps he hired some shadowrunners to go and kill him or is trying to kill Kyle's dad with other gang members while the group is working on finding Kyle/Chang. I was kind of shooting for him to just be out for the money/new toys to make his gang more influential in the area by money/having Kyle in his pocket.

Edit: Thanks discussion always gets the ideas flowing for me.

[Namikaze]

I think it might take some doing but there's an apartment complex across the street I used to live in that's about 3 stories high... no real way on the roof but I can hand wave that and say they were rebuilt if a question comes up so that it had a flat top 'fourth floor' roof. Question though do you mean gun to head against the side of a roof or actually dangling Ms. Chang off the edge? If so how the hell do you get someone out of that? o.O'

I was thinking of dangling her off the edge - three or four stories should just about do it.  As to how to get someone out of that situation, you have to get a bit lucky or be really good.  Talk him down from killing her, or pop him with a bullet and sprint to catch her.  Another twist would be if Ms. Chang gets killed during the combat, and then Kyle stands on the ledge threatening to jump.  Lots of ways to get into that kind of situation, and it'll put your players to the test.  If they fail, then they fail.  It's part of the test as well.

Heh wouldn't it be twisted if Ms. Chang actually is trying to get rid of an abusive relationship and become the leader and/or put kyle as leader as he's much easier to control?

Now there's an interesting direction.  If she wants to prop up Kyle to be the leader of the gang, that could explain her relationship to the Claws.

[Zilfer]

Lol Damsel in distress or Criminal Mastermind? hmmm....

[Padawan]

Both. She could be a face or fellow neuromancer who manipulated the gang leader to hold her over the edge (magically or just by pissing him off), who then installs Kyle as leader after the group does her dirty work.

[Namikaze]

That's freaking dark, Padawan.  I love it. 

[Zilfer]

Both. She could be a face or fellow neuromancer who manipulated the gang leader to hold her over the edge (magically or just by pissing him off), who then installs Kyle as leader after the group does her dirty work.

Good Idea, I doubt the group would check to see if she's a mage.

Edit: One person didn't show up for the game but I ran it and they took the very blunt approach of trying to scout and during scouting they decided to 'just go for it' since they had identified Kyle and two other's. They were taking hits of Kamikaze and shooting vents (one of the players was in it sneaking around XD bad place to be!)

They managed to drop kyle who was told to go get help from the other building across the street before he dropped. They came in laying down suppressive fire four times when they realized the shadowrunners were kickin their butts and bullets didn't seem to be slowing them. The group however ended up NOT getting Kyle and retreating because of one being close to KOing, and another having taken quiet a beating.

So botched attempt but the gang still probably doesn't know what they were there for and only knows someone attacked them on THEIR turf....


Edit Edit: To be fair I did have them out numbered 1 to 4? 3 vs 12 though not all at once. They did pretty good though I think they took out over half, 7 if I can remember with other 4 severely hurt and 1 down to near death.