[DigitalZombie]

Im gonna be Mr Johnson today!

Instead of some boring ol' mr Johnson hiring the runners, one of the runners are actually hiring his own team.
Its best to introduce this possible scenario to the players, after they have already been on some runs and scraped together some hard earned cash. Furthermore it requires some GM and player interaction and planning, and lastly that the team isnt complete #¤%holes towards each other. (For example the face trying to negotiate the price on the krimebuster run with poor Lurch the teams Cha1 troll tank and temporary Mr Johnson)

The McGuffin is whatever the Mr Johnson/player desires (as long as it is approved by the GM) cost and availability should determine the risk/difficulty of the run

Instead of an NPC telling the runners to go fetch the paydata and getting 54.000 nuyen as payment (total combined).
The team mage hires his buddy to help him go steal a rating 3 powerfocus (which coincidently is worth 54,000 nuyen) the payment for this run should of course be the exact same, as if the runners had worked for the NPC. So if the team consists of 4 members, each hired member should get 13,500 nuyen from the mage. The mage would have to part with 40,500.

Its a great way to involve players and make them act instead of react.

[Djinnocide]

I love it! I might also consider running a variation of this idea, using one of my party's characters when they can't make a game as a novel one-off.

[Lorebane24]

Mr. Johnson needs the party to infiltrate a shipping office and plant a microchip in a large crate of other microchips that is going out tomorrow.  The party doesn't need to necessarily avoid notice, but they cannot do anything that would give the office cause to look closely at that specific crate, and the crate must ship as scheduled.

The party is hired by a street doc to steal a piece of medical equipment from a state-of-the-art hospital.  He needs it to install cyberware higher than alpha grade, and after the run is complete, they party may be able to reap the benefits of his upgraded facilities.

The party is hired by a police detective, a shaman, or a minor government official to look into the disappearances of several children.  Most of them occurred near an old metro line where there was neo-anarchist bombing years before, and several children perished in the attack.  The place is run-down and has a pretty ugly astral signature, and also infested with some overgrown mutant critters.  Culprit turns out to be a shadow spirit who has been luring children down there and eating them.

[Bewilderbeast]

Hot Potato

The team is hired to escort a package to the other side of the city. Time is critical; it needs to get there in two hours, which means racing through sprawl traffic jams and go-gang territory in order to make the deadline. What Mr. Johnson doesn't tell the runners is that the package, a painted clay pot, is actually a timed alchemical preparation. If the players fail to make the deadline, it goes off.

[BetaCAV]

The "Magic" Magic 8-Ball
When it was discovered that this Aztechnology project was merely a novelty for the astrally active crowd, incorporating some astrally active biocontent into the fluid, pretty much everyone lost interest. Some of the runners involved in discovering that fact are still angry, according to rumors. However, new rumors have sprouted that someone has actually developed an enchantment that quintuples it's predictive accuracy. Bringing back the spell formula is probably impossible, without kidnapping every mage they've got and interrogating all of them, but would probably sell for enough to retire on, but the job is just to retrieve this prototype.

[Edit: If you haven't already done the math, that takes it from 1:20 for a given answer it's capable of giving, to 1:4. A coin toss is 1:2, but if a similar enchantment could be applied to a coin it might be worthwhile, but this maguffin just isn't. But it works, for whatever that's worth until the shadowrunners hand it over. It may even warn them against not doing so, if they ask it.]

Determine the correct answer from the table below, and roll a d20 (or 4d6-3 rerolling 21's, if you don't have one handy, or need to roll in view of the players). if you are off by 1 or 2 in either direction, fudge to the previously chosen answer. If you really, really need a carrot to throw at players, refresh an edge point if you roll the number exactly, or roll a 21 (max once per character per day), but give one to their opposition as well to keep things "fair".

 1 - It is certain
 2 - Reply hazy try again
 3 - It is decidedly so
 4 - Ask again later
 5 - Without a doubt
 6 - Better not tell you now
 7 - Yes definitely
 8 - Cannot predict now
 9 - You may rely on it
10 - Concentrate and ask again
11 - As I see it yes
12 - Don't count on it
13 - Most likely
14 - My reply is no
15 - Outlook good
16 - My sources say no
17 - Yes
18 - Outlook not so good
19 - Signs point to yes
20 - Very doubtful