[DoubleTap]

Daddy's little girl.
Spoiled rich girl decides to go run with gang.  The Dad is not happy about this, and want his little girl back.  The runners are hired to extract a spoiled rich girl from the locale gang.  This is not a voluntary extraction. 
Btw Daddy is a high level boss in organized crime.  The gang is located in the worst part of the sprawl. 

Complication1.  The Johnson could not have told the runners the girl left of her own free will.

Complication 2.  The gang has about 30 members, not the Boy friend, plus some "4-5" members.

Complication 3.  Theres a gang war going on in the neighborhood. 

Complication 4.  Daddy's little girl is strung out on BTL's, or other drugs.

Complication 5.  The gang is no longer in possession of said girl. 

The time I ran this, the team had to deal with the Brat princess, kicking and screaming, and had to eventually be tranqed.  The fun part the team decided to do a dynamic entry raid on the Gangs hide out, so while dealing with the brat, they where taken fire from the gang memebers, that where called in,  that where severely pissed  that there was a hole in the wall. 
At least the Team gunner finally got to use his customized M-202 called miss piggy.

[crisses]

MatrixLeaks

A take-off on WikiLeaks -- the runners are part of a whistleblower organization (or hired thereby) and working to expose a variety of corporate & governmental neer-do-goods who need to be taken down some number of notches.

When they get information, they post it to underground Matrix information boards where it multiplies like wildfire.

Of course, don't go to bed with the wrong lady and give the governments an excuse to capture/interrogate/extradite you....  This would be a group that would really have to stay exceptionally low profile, possibly spread out all around the globe, and work in deep cover.  You don't want to make the corps mad.  Unfortunately Corp X loves when Corp Y is exposed -- but hates of course when something Corp X does is exposed.  The corps eat this up -- a true love-hate relationship -- and MatrixLeaks refuses to be bought.

[Cass100199]

This is for the straight forward "bring your guns" and lets cut loose moments. The PC's are hired by an older gentleman to come and protect his village from bandits. The town is made up of very religious people who abhor violence and won't "damn their souls" to protect what is their's.  They started out as a devout Catholic congregation who moved out of the bigger city to get away from the violence, etc. and they started growing their own grapes to make wine. A bumper crop later, they're actually selling good wine for a helluva profit and now a major agricorp wants the land and has hired a small group of thugs to come in and push them out.

So yeah, obvious Seven Samurai theme, but I've always found this a fun way for everyone to cut loose and sling some lead. You can design your village in a valley of some sort and the PC's have to use the terrain to take on an overwhelming force, so on and so forth. If you want to add a cinematic twist, the priest may not have always been a priest (Danny Trejo in a white collar?).

[Mason]

Have an extremely narcissistic Johnson hire a wetwork for his own daughter. She Awakens and takes up an urban druid tradition, not going hermetic and getting involved with the 'corp like she should have. In order to prevent what he considered to be a public disgrace, he orders a hit on her to prevent his peers from finding out.

Complications
1 - The Johnson makes up a spurious reason for the hit rather than the truth. Perhaps he says she 'stole something' from him, and wants a piece of jewelry she had when she left?
2 - She had joined a 'gang' of other urban druids, only they aren't really druids at all. They are a cult trying to resurrect ancient celtic gods and bind them to mortal forms. Only, they need a body to bind the spirit to. Wait for it...Wait for it...she was the one chosen! When the runners bust in, they have JUST finished binding a spirit into her body strong enough to challenge the whole team!
3 - These spirits have such raw power, they can conceal their auras from view and appear perfectly normal. The 'Cult Leader' is also inhabited by an EVEN STRONGER spirit, and he flees when he sees the runners in order to set up defenses deeper in the base. He isn't willing to risk himself - a new meat puppet can be found and converted. Will they let this guy go and continue the cult?
4 - The team isn't the only one on this job! When she joined the cult, she left her boyfriend, a corporate manager, in an extremely public place. He is shamed, and hires a team to 'rescue' her from the cult and bring her to him for his own reasons. As the team is trying to finish the job, another team of roughly equivalent skill busts in from behind! It might be the better part of valor to run away and live another day....
5 - Perhaps these aren't Celtic spirits, but bugs? Up to your story needs.

EDIT: Idea evolved some more, changed things.

[JustADude]

Have an extremely narcissistic Johnson hire a wetwork for his own daughter. She Awakens and takes up an urban druid tradition, not going hermetic and getting involved with the 'corp like she should have. In order to prevent what he considered to be a public disgrace, he orders a hit on her to prevent his peers from finding out.

Complications
1 - The Johnson makes up a spurious reason for the hit rather than the truth. Perhaps he says she 'stole something' from him, and wants a piece of jewelry she had when she left?
2 - She had joined a 'gang' of other urban druids, only they aren't really druids at all. They are a cult trying to resurrect ancient celtic gods and bind them to mortal forms. Only, they need a body to bind the spirit to. Wait for it...Wait for it...she was the one chosen! When the runners bust in, they have JUST finished binding a spirit into her body strong enough to challenge the whole team!
3 - These spirits have such raw power, they can conceal their auras from view and appear perfectly normal. The 'Cult Leader' is also inhabited by an EVEN STRONGER spirit, and he flees when he sees the runners in order to set up defenses deeper in the base. He isn't willing to risk himself - a new meat puppet can be found and converted. Will they let this guy go and continue the cult?
4 - The team isn't the only one on this job! When she joined the cult, she left her boyfriend, a corporate manager, in an extremely public place. He is shamed, and hires a team to 'rescue' her from the cult and bring her to him for his own reasons. As the team is trying to finish the job, another team of roughly equivalent skill busts in from behind! It might be the better part of valor to run away and live another day....
5 - Perhaps these aren't Celtic spirits, but bugs? Up to your story needs.

EDIT: Idea evolved some more, changed things.

Having a single Big Bad Wolf-Monster type situation tends to be a poor option for a story, because it works out one of two ways:

1) The PCs are utterly helpless and get slaughtered if the GM doesn't asspull something to save them, or
2) Their numerical advantage chews the thing down in a hail of gunfire in seconds, regardless of its abilities.

...and having to take someone alive when they're Possessed/Inhabited by a hostile spirit vastly pushes the odds towards #1.

The other parts look pretty good, though... maybe drop the Mega-Spirits in favor of a Toxic Cult or simply a more traditional Cult of Personality formed out of various Awakened people brainwashed by a head whackjob?

[Mason]

Having a single Big Bad Wolf-Monster type situation tends to be a poor option for a story, because it works out one of two ways:

1) The PCs are utterly helpless and get slaughtered if the GM doesn't asspull something to save them, or
2) Their numerical advantage chews the thing down in a hail of gunfire in seconds, regardless of its abilities.

...and having to take someone alive when they're Possessed/Inhabited by a hostile spirit vastly pushes the odds towards #1.

The other parts look pretty good, though... maybe drop the Mega-Spirits in favor of a Toxic Cult or simply a more traditional Cult of Personality formed out of various Awakened people brainwashed by a head whackjob?

Uhm...sure, but there are two spirits, and a cult of mages around them, and another team involved. It is very dangerous, because after you deal with one thing, there is another. If the team just rushes in and doesn't scout properly, they are very likely to get chewed up and have to run, and lose members in the process. It's a cluster**** situation. I wouldn't necessarily call that a Big Bad Wolf type of situation...

Oh, and the run is to kill her, not save her. He doesn't know she is possessed. It's the OTHER team that is saving her...though now that I think of it, it could be the other way around pretty easily, and the OTHER team has a much better chance of surviving, as they aren't smack in the middle of it.

(Not trying to be rude here, just disagreeing. Hope my word choice doesn't offend)

If it is too difficult for a given group, lower the Force values of the spirits, or have the team arrive before the Possession (thus having only one spirit), or drop the spirits entirely in favor of more tame ideas, or cut out the other team (VERY easy to do if things look grim - they just don't show up). This particular scenario would work in my game, but we have very strong characters at the moment. Of course, my adept handles spirits and my mage handles other mages, and the gunners back them. The hacker rapes the system, of course.

[Crash_00]

Here is a list of simple seed ideas that I wrote out a long long time ago:

1. Babysitter - Protect rich kid Brat Johnny G while he goes out on the town for a night.
2. Hostage Negotiation/Retrieval - Negotiate the release of/Retrieve a/several VIPs.
3. Anarchy - Create one hell of a distraction
4. Test Run - Test a new corporate HQs security systems (of course they don't have to tell you what's going on  )
5. Metal - Play security to a street concert for an up and coming metal band.
6. Infestation - Clear out an infested research facility and save/eliminate key personnel.
7. Yakkity Yak - Dress up as Yak hitters and take out a few specific mobsters quick. Then dress up as mobster and take out some Yak and Triad indiscriminately.
8. Prizefighter - Ensure that the crowd favorite does not win the next match.
9. The Beast - Accompany a reknown big game hunter and protect him from threats as he delves into the awakened forest to take down the world's largest recorded awakened crocodile...with a bowie knife.
10. Zoology - Steal an awakened tiger from the city zoo.
11. Flight 187 - Extract a target from an international flight.
12. Khan - Take out a ganger trying to unify the cities gangs and frame several of the gangs for it to spark doubt on the alliance.
13. The Frame Up - Frame a guilty man for the crime he managed to succesfully cover up.
14. Cold Blood - Investigate a brutal murder so that he victim's family can take care of the murder before the law catches up.
15. Vigilante X - Discover the identity of a vigilante that has been trying to save the town.
16. Late Johnson - Survive being framed for murder when you're caught at the meet sight and a later Johnson drops in from above. (Had the Johnson thrown from a roof and land at the group's feet as they were entering the building when I did it)
17. Jailbreak - Bust a known (and deserved) felon out of MaxSec for the Johnson and get him to international waters
18. Art Burn - Break into the city museum and destroy several pieces of art.
19. The Package - Deliver a package from Seattle to Hong Kong and fend of the bizzare crowd trying to obtain it. (Package should be something really out their like the newest prototype of the Studmaster 3000...ya you know you liked the pun.)
20. Pan-Galactic - Play club security for VIP record producer Mason Maxwell at the hottest club in town.
21. High Yield - Steal a very "hot" delivery coming into the city and deliver it to the Johnson while evading Homeland Security.
22. Elemental Rock - Defend an old rocker that left the biz from his deranged and pissed ex-band mates. Oh and their all shamans.
23. Mall Rats - Break into the mall on Thanksgiving and still the Black Friday shipment of 2072 Rock Me Dunkie.
24. Field Trip - Kidnap a CEO's son from a school field trip to a theme park. (Cue beverly hills cop music)
25. Field Test - Field test the newest project for the Johnson and deliver it back undamaged with the test results. May include protecting a scientist during the testing phase.
26. Pirates - Protect a cruise liner from a pirate attack that the Johnson knows is coming.
27. Fatal Extraction - Extract a target and make sure that they die during the extraction. Must return with the corpse.
28. Launch Failure - Make the renewal of the space projects first launch an utter disaster.
29. Interception - Intercept a group that is trying to steal a package from the Johnson and make sure they learn their lesson.
30. Wise Man - Rescue an old wise man from an village under control by an African warlord tyrant.
31. 8 Heads - Deliver the heads of eight men to the Johnson. (He provides a duffel bag for storage  )
32. Driver - Play get away driver/extraction team for a group of Prime Runners in town for the evening.
33. Recipe - KFC is remoddeling their security vault. Steal the recipe for the special blend of herbs and spices while it's being moved around in an armored enclave with heavy security on site.
34. Tin Man - Disable and return a rogue cyborg.
35. Advertising Principles - Create an advertisement for the new Predator Vs good qualities by using it to assassinate one of Colt's lead R&D scientists. Advertising is money friend. Recommend not getting face shots during the filming.
36. Gang Violence - Brutalize eight gangs in the city to reduce the rising gang numbers. Preferably set them at each others throats over territories in the barrens.
37. Fire Sale - Disable the city's electricity, water, and matrix service.
38. Super Jet - Steal the plans for a revolutionary new plan back from a company that stole it from the Johnson...or did they. (Shamelessly stolen from the first episode of leverage)
39. Fort Night - Break into a military fort to...deliver a message to a man in on site lockup.
40. Expendable Heroes - E-X-P...E-N-D...A-B-L-E-S, expendables, expendables (sung to the mickey mouse song tune). The group is hired to assault a low security (according to the Johnson) compound and severely damage it's infrastructure. Of course it's just a distraction for the real job.
41. The Clerk - He wasn't even supposed to be there today, but he actually came into work when the boss called him on his day off. It could ruin everything. Get him out of the building by any means necessary.
42. Block Buster - Kidnap block buster starlette Kim Heights for the night. Deliver her to her apartment unharmed, but in appropriately tattered and stylish garments, the next morning.
43. Beer Run - Smuggle a few hundred cases of Cascade Tempo Ale into Seattle for a bachelor party of the century.
44. Mail Man - Steal a package out for delivery.
45. Subject 5.2 - Break into a facility and extract subject 5.2 from cell 9. (Subject 5.2 is a very horny red ape, and the Johnson does not mention specifics unless grilled for them)
46. ED 209 - Disable a damage heavy combat drone that is rampaging through the city and plant the bodies of a militant group at the scene after removing the drone.
47. Deployment - Spark a skirmish in Africa to ensure that active soldiers are deployed at a low staffed nearby base.
48. Treason - Deliver a rifle to a certain point in the city that is restricted access without being noticed by secret service security teams.
49. Secret Secret Service - Protect the president from an assassination attempt without his, or the secret service's, knowledge.
50.  Action Heroes - Eliminate a group of gangers that have taken bloody hold of the Plastic Jungle...while on camera for stock footage to splice into this summer's action title Blood Gore and Mayhem 27: The Last Act Part VIII, One Final Bullet.
51. Central Bank - Take Hostages and keep them in the bank for 48 hours. Do not steal anything. Casualties are acceptable.
52. Have a Heart - Steal a heart being transported for human transplant and get it to the Johnson before it's time is up.
53. Public Execution - Hit a politician during his election parade.
54. Air Force One - Air Force One has gone down over the Cascades, get to the wreckage and obtain the nuclear football before anyone else.
55. Joyhouse - Rescue the Johnson's daughter from a Joyhouse and slaughter all the management linked to the joint...painfully.
56. Game Con - Extract a target from Gen Con 2072.
57. Simulation - Prove that a famous pop star is really just a agent with personality software. (Taken from the movie SimOne)
58. Vat Job - Break into a black clinic and kill a famous street sam while he's in a vat healing from his upgrades.
59. Clone War - Find the source that keeps cloning powerful CEOs and destroy them/their facilities. Unfortunately, the Johnson was an escaped clone trying to destroy those that made him and has no resources to pay for a job well done.
60. Cold Case - Figure out who is after the Johnson and deal with them. Unfortunately, the only leads he has are all related to a case from 2012 and it looks like they'll have to solve it before they can figure out what's going on.
61. Convoy - Guard a convoy on its way from LA to Vegas and protect the cargo containers at all costs. Of course it wouldn't be a good session if a bunch of good for nothing runners didn't try to hijack the cargo.
62. SEAL - Rescue a group of SEALs and hostages from an oil rig that has been taken over by terrorists.
63. An Act of War - Assassinate a head of state and frame a foreign country for it, but not before you plant data files and evidence suggesting secret alliances and active support of the actions all across the world. Will this be the beginning of WWIII or has it already begun?
64. Heavy Metal - A cyborg went dark on an assassination mission in Europe. An alliance was formed with his target twenty minutes after he went dark. Stop him, and do so without bringing attention to his intent/controllers.
65. The Hanging Men - A gang is hanging patrol officers from street lamps all across Seattle. The law is cracking down hard and the national guard is threatening to move in, putting a cramp on the biz. Track down these gangers and make an example of them by hanging them from the security fence at the down town precinct.
66. Death Shroud - Steal an ancient artifact from an Egyptian mummy exhibit and return it to the Johnson. Things go bad after the group takes it. Is it cursed or is this just a complete coincidence?
67. The Holy Grail - A researcher's son went off on his own in the middle east claiming he found the secret to the holy grail's location. He hasn't been heard from in two weeks and the researcher just received a ransom notice. Rescue his son and bring the head of the kidnapper back.
68. Prisoner Transport - Hit a prisoner during his transport from sentencing to MaxSec. Proof of his death must be made available through a public media source (news, youtube, etc.)
69. 2000 rounds - The Johnson provides the runners with an HMG and 2000 AV rounds of ammunition. The job is simple. Destroy as at least half the vehicles in use by Highman Express Shipping. (The Johnson neglects to mention the companies airplanes but will count them when comparing the numbers and cut pay by an appropriate percentage if they weren't dealt with.)
70. Barren Blues - Steal an underground blues singer's music recordings for a record label.
71. Destruction - Destroy a gang's base of operations and disrupt all of their resources. The group must be scattered past being able to regroup.
72. Spy Games - Pursue a target and abduct him during his romantic date. Torture him until he gives up a pass-phrase and then let him barely escape. Tail him to his home/hotel and then call the Johnson.  (It's all just an elaborate game set up by a couple thrill seeking high ranking wage slaves.)
73. Sick Leave - Destroy a R&D scientists doctor's notes and plant evidence that he has been faking his illness.
74. Plague Prevention - A biological leak may have occurred at a remote corporate owned lab. Unfortunately for the personnel, they are considered expendable and the corp wants to take no chances. Eliminate the personnel as a precautionary measure. (The leak did occur and is was a virus that makes the subject highly contagious, strong and resistant to pain but dumb as a box of rocks...that's right...pretty much a zombie. If you really want to be blatant have the remote lab be part of a high class mansion.)
75. Seattle's Most Wanted - Get a highly sought criminal out of town without being caught by the police or border patrols. The city is locked down and everyone is on high alert looking for this individual.
76.  The Card - Break into a penthouse suite and steal a card that the resident owes the Johnson for a bet that was never paid. Take/Damage nothing else.
77. The Book - Break into the estate of a recently deceased fixer and steal his commlink of contact numbers before it gets unwittingly sold at the estate sale.
78. The Hotel Job - Extract a target from a hotel. Dump a body in the targets room and torch the building while you're at it. (It's all really just a giant insurance scam.)
79. Hit the Hit Team - A high class team has been hired to take out a key politician. Hit them just after they've completed their hit. (The Johnson has another hit team set up to hit the runners. She's really a hitwoman trying to thin out the competition.)
80.  Missing Queen - Find a missing CEO that was last reported to be on an African Safari.
81. A Simple Run - Break into a corporate owned warehouse, steal a crate, and deliver it to the Johnson. Get Paid. Everything seems far to easy and flawless. (Make sure to have plenty of perception, logic and random rolls ready to amp up paranoia, but hey...everyone gets an easy one now and then)
82. Cleaning House - Loyalty test a group of corporate citizens by kidnapping them and torturing them for information/bribing them to betray their company. Deal with those that fail.
83. Epidemic - Release a biochemical agent on a terrorist village in south america. Things get complicated when it begins spreading like wildfire.
84. 9...8...7 - Plant a series of explosives around town designed to create the ultimate mix of panic and destruction at ten PM the next day.
85. The Island - Break onto a corporate controlled island and infiltrate their research labs for information on a classified project.

Added a few more from the list.

Having a single Big Bad Wolf-Monster type situation tends to be a poor option for a story, because it works out one of two ways:

I would  like to point out that the Big Bad Wolf style of villain does work in the Shadowrun system, it just requires a careful balancing that most GM's just aren't that good at. (It actually works this way in almost all systems when you get down to it)

There are main points to consider when creating an NPC meant to be a combat opponent: Offense and Defense. Making an opponent that is able to stand up against multiple PCs while not butchering them requires an overwhelming defense and a mediocre to average offense.

However, what most GM's come up with is either A.) an overwhelming Offense and Defense, in which case you end up with:

1) The PCs are utterly helpless and get slaughtered if the GM doesn't asspull something to save them

or B) an overwhelming Offense with a mediocre to average Defense in which case you end up with:

2) Their numerical advantage chews the thing down in a hail of gunfire in seconds, regardless of its abilities.

Of course if the players don't take simple precautions, an mediocre or average fight can put them on their asses (Even high level D&D characters feared my kobolds damn it. Enough pit traps will wear down anyone.)

This isn't just an assumption on my part, but a lot of experience with games that have big bad evil guy fights and are much much much more lethal than SR4A's system (like comparing a switchblade to a flaming chainsaw coated with cyanide). For example, Hell on Earth's BBEGs had a specific weakness to even be capable of killing them, and we aren't talking about weaknesses like silver, insecticide, or clipping them in the heel, we're talking about things like "must use a weapon crafted from a piece of his bomber that he crashed 13 years ago when the bombs fell and buried in the Mojave" for a guy the group is unlikely to every get a conversation out of about his past to find out about said plane.

[Jaffer]

81. A Simple Run - Break into a corporate owned warehouse, steal a crate, and deliver it to the Johnson. Get Paid. Everything seems far to easy and flawless. (Make sure to have plenty of perception, logic and random rolls ready to amp up paranoia, but hey...everyone gets an easy one now and then)

I like that one.
I like making my players paranoid.

[Walks Through Walls]

81. A Simple Run - Break into a corporate owned warehouse, steal a crate, and deliver it to the Johnson. Get Paid. Everything seems far to easy and flawless. (Make sure to have plenty of perception, logic and random rolls ready to amp up paranoia, but hey...everyone gets an easy one now and then)

I like that one.
I like making my players paranoid.

Yeah I started my current campaign with a run that went much like this partially because of good planning on the player's part, but now several runs later and having seen how I throw twists at the group a couple of the players are wondering what they missed on that first run, and how it is going to come back and haunt the team.

[raggedhalo]

One I did a while back, adapted from the SR4 (rather than SR4A) Contacts & Adventures guide:

Their regular fixer hires then to guard a berth in a coffin motel for a week.  The only stipulation is that they're not to look inside.  A fairly quiet week occurs, with two interruptions: a crate of AK97s gets delivered to the berth, and a group of flesh-form Ant Spirits (with whom the PCs have an ongoing vendetta) attack.

At the end of the week, their regular fixer gets out of the berth (after calling the team's mage to ask them to take their ward down).  Six IC months later, the PCs learn that the fixer is part of a shadowy cabal of Mantis spirits ;-)

We didn't roll dice once in that last session - no need, as it was 100% roleplay.  One of the players claimed that I had "won the campaign" at that point.  *grin*

[DoubleTap]

This came from watching some flick.

3 under world, and public figures are assassinated. They only thing the assassins have in common if the runners do enough digging, is they all have some weird skill wires hooked up.    With more digging around or if the runners have a street doc contact, they determine that the skill wires are not the off the shelf type.  with further leg work the runners find out that some one is kid napping the Subjects, implanting these skill wire to make people into one shot assassins.    The runners could be hired to find and stop who ever is doing this.

[roni]

adventures for 1st time runners perferbly after "food-fight".

fixer forward charcter job offer in form of ar/vr file. all done in icons only. $$$ 1000 big hand goes into locat petstop @tm picks up orange fluffy rat with spiked head and fur. hand goes on gridmap to  elven wine and cheese store comes out with hand with "punkrat" eating cheese. then into box with cheese hand puts rpid on it then puts it in building in corptown adress evo section. then $$$ pops up with 1000 on it that goes into charecter icn follwed by a big cheese.

break down sapiant protocritter geneticly modifyed punkrat @tm hires the  runners to buy him from petstop and to deliver him to evo managers apt (son is technomancer).

complications
1.petsop mall in middle of renovations and security is down 2 holloweener couples are hanging out in mall and making trouble , female ganger wants to buy rat but ar tell clerk rat has been pre paid and awaiting pick up , when pcs enter argument turns vocal and if pc dont interveen ganger 1 pulls shotgun from under heavy longcoat and points at clerk.

2. on the way to elven cheese and wine pcs are harrased by go-gangers (if complecation 1 was solved by intimidation or violence haloweeners if not diff go gang)

3.getting admitted into corp town security check.

4.getting into evo building

subtle clues.

johnson only icons in ar. cheese for a rat and expensive at that. all the way once pcs have rat stange matrix stuff as if hacker/techno in over watch (samples: lights turning green ,ganger bikes assulted in vr, money being transferd as each checkpoint is cleared)

delivery of rat 1
discovering rat is proto critter 1
dealing with halloweener gangers with out violence 1 (including intimidation or con in part 1 then escaping in part 2 dealing with violence with diff gang ok if pcs want blood here s a good way to get it)

[crisses]

break down sapiant protocritter geneticly modifyed punkrat @tm hires the  runners to buy him from petstop and to deliver him to evo managers apt (son is technomancer).

Awesome...could find a secondary plot twist to go with it.  For example, is the rat smart enough to give a larger decoy mission to mask the underlying mission of getting the rat to the evo manager's apt?    If the rat is smart enough to use the Matrix, the rat is probably smart enough to use language other than glyphs, but the glyph idea is cool.

[beowulf_of_wa]

or the rat is only willing to communicate with the one illiterate on the team.

_{damn, i really can kill a thread, can't i?}

[voydangel]

One multi part story I'm planning on using is designed for new players, although it could be modified to work with pro's by simply adding a bunch of complications (based in Seattle, but could be anywhere).

An old but very well known runner has come out of retirement. His street cred is amazing, he was known for helping new meat on the street to not get their heads blown off. Really really altruistic and benevolent as far as the shadows are concerned. His reasons for coming out of retirement involve a debt owed to a friend, and the repayment of that debt (left open ended on purpose). He hires the team and brings them together in order to do 2 things. 1. Get some info on the debt repayment run that he will be doing soon, and 2. help the fresh meat that he's heard about in the last few months get on their feet and into shape. This old school prime runner will be there with the team to walk them through the steps of the run with hints, tips, how-to's, and procedure advice. He should become like a father figure to them over the course or 2 to 3 missions.

Sequence:
0. Throughout each stage of the mission sequence, they are being foiled, sabotaged, and interfered with. It seems to be random at first, or possibly due to being green and fresh, but it slowly becomes apparent that there is a 2nd team that is actively working against them, but they cant seem to identify who they are, and no one on the streets can figure it out either. They are being very non-lethal in their combat tactics when engaged, but the runners cant seem to take out any of the opposing members as the "game of shadows" continues.
1. The 1st (recon) run, in which their benefactor and them are casing a corporate owned residential building, a luxury scale night club, a very high security corporate residential penthouse suite located inside a corporate business complex, and a completely separate corporate research facility for possible personnel extraction locations, the runners find out that the debt that their benefactor owes was for having someone save his life. No one on the streets is aware of this, and the man who did the saving is no longer a runner - he is now a big shot at a large corporation.
2. The 2nd run consists of the surveillance of 2 corporate security personnel, 1 highly secured weapons R&D researcher, 2 night club employees, a high level corporate exec, and a woman and her daughter living on one of the islands. When the runner do some background checking, they find that the mother and daughter live in the residential building, which is also where the security people work. The researcher works at the lab they cased, and the night club employees work at the fancy night club, although 1 was recently fired, and the exec is the enemy of the man who saved their benefactor. Additionally, they discover that the man who saved their benefactors life recently had his family (wife and daughter) go missing.
3. The 3rd run is primarily getting some beef on the security guards and night club employees, and then trying to identify weaknesses in the locations cased during mission #1, as well as identifying potential weaknesses in the woman/daughter, and researchers security details and daily routines. During this stage, the characters uncover the following info: Their benefactor has been hired to find his savior's wife and daughter, and the other exec is heading up some underhanded human research, with the researcher in command of the secret project, with some compelling evidence that the exec was behind the kidnapping.
4. Here we decide to break into the R&D facility to see if the wife and daughter are being used as human subjects. We don't find them, but we do uncover some interesting attempts to artificially create shapeshifter soldiers. We further uncover that our benefactor has a secondary mission: he's going to have to kidnap the other guys wife and daughter to use as leverage, and then who knows what will happen to them. But we're still not 100% sure that the exec is the one who took them.
5. The run is to extract the wife and daughter of the exec (the bad guys with the human testing, not the one who hired the benefactor) in order to use them as leverage to get him to talk and tell once and for all if he is behind the kidnapping. After the ladies are extracted from their home (the corporate residential place), they will contact the exec to let him know whats up and where to meet.
6. Here is where it gets nasty. The meet will be held at the nightclub, where both execs will be present along with a member of the runner team (preferably someone with high etiquette). Our benefactor (and maybe 1 team member) will break onto the execs penthouse suite to dig through some files and make sure everything is how he says it is in real time. A majority of the group will be baby sitting the women. They will get a full data download from their benefactor of all the data they need to make the run a success just before he is killed. Having lost their benefactor the team should feel rather lost and dazed. This is quickly compounded, after looking through the data, that the wife and daughter of the one exec are the same people as the other exec's missing family. They had some surgery done so that they could leave the one guy and live with the other, (Maybe they wanted to go, but didn't want to hurt the feelings or honor of the guy who hired the benefactor, or maybe it was against their will?).

So the question becomes: tell the "good/honorable" exec the truth and let him be disgraced, as well as have the death of his long time friend on his hands, or not tell him and let him think his family has disappeared, thereby letting the "bad" exec win the conflict. Or hide all the evidence, kill the women and let both men live in anguish. Or reveal all the evidence and kill them. Or take the women elsewhere to live away from all this. Or...

It's all up to the players now.

But think fast, because that other shadow team is about to crash the party...

I particularly like this scenario as a seed due to the ample number of ways it can be tweaked for different players, campaigns, etc. As well as making any number of these things spin off into their own sub-plots and missions, and if you really wanted to go crazy, you could spread all this out over a series of other missions and make it a recurring sub-plot that ties into all your other missions and character backstories. It just takes a little imagination and this framework/seed could be anything from a 1 shot adventure to a full campaign and anything in between...