[ChewyGranola]

So do each of your stories tie together, or do you run each mission as an individual story with a small number of repercussions or what?

Debating starting a new SR game up, and from my previous experience with WoD, everything is all tied together. However, the nature of SR, what with PCs going on actual in-game defined "missions", seems to leave the game wide open to a TV show style serial type group of missions.

So how do y'all run the game?

[Crunch]

I tend to do a continuing story, but that's because I find the unconnected missions format to be uninteresting.

Essentially the "Mission" is SR's equivalent to the classic D&D Dungeon Crawl. It can be a lot of fun, but it's a little too formulaic for my taste.

[Walks Through Walls]

My campaign has two separate overlying arcs going on which about 90% of the adventures tie into with the other 10% being one off ideas or something to do more directly with the characters and their actions.

[Godwyn]

In mine even the "random" runs tie into the characters.  Either it is for one of their contacts, or relates to their backstory in some way, or will get them a new contact.  There is an overarching plot, but not every run ties into it.  Sometimes there needs to be downtime in the main story as things build up behind the scenes, but you don't want the runners sitting around with nothing to do for a long time.

[Reaver]

I run campaigns, with one main theme, dozens of red herrings, dead end missions, plot twists, and other sorts of twists and turns.

[ImaginalDisc]

One of the joys of Shadowrun, as opposed to some other game settings, is that it is assumed the PCs are guns for hire. As a GM you can put a plot arc on hold at any time and offer the players a seemingly random Shadowrun that has nothing to do with the plot.

"I know we need to figure out who killed your family, Bobby, but we're waiting on some leads and this dude just offering us twenty thousand nuyen to bring him some pay data. We can do this tonight and get back to solving that murder tomorrow!"

[cyclopean]

When I'm not doing main-story missions (I'd say I probably split about 50/50), I like to tie in either a specific character's contacts or backstory, or have some metaplot element turn up (in the form of a call from a contact unrelated to the current mission, or a news item overheard, or whatever) just to keep people paying attention & feeling invested & engaged. And a lot of the one-off missions I run are from contacts with whom the players are building up relationships, so they usually sort of tie in.

[Chrome Tiger]

Our campaigns usually tie in 2-3 different underlying minor arcs into one larger arc.  I try to work the characters' backgrounds into the story as much as I can, in addition to the regular daily Shadowrun opportunities.  It has worked go so far, I think.  If we feel we need a break, we change settings and characters.  With the exception of an occasional one-shot, we run serialized.