Hi! So, after getting to play Shadowrun for the first time in a non-GM role I got inspired and built a campaign for the two groups I will be running, since studies have taken me away from my hometown but I will visit there occasionally and play through Skype. I'm thinking of running things through with the other group first so I can make the necessary changes for the other group living in my current town which I will play with.
The reason I made this topic was to hear feedback about the scenario ideas I'm having and suggest other ideas to insert. I've only written the first two scenarios so far out completely, and some ideas are still quite vague...
The groups themselves are
Group A:A dwarf-hating human... Street samurai with minor augmentations, focusing pretty much only on killing stuff (Automatics 7 with SA speciality and AGI
... I tried to talk him to be a little more... broad but as it is, he rolls a ton of dice for perception, blades and automatics but little for anything else.
A human catgirl-wannabe with skills needed for lockpicking, demolitions, stealth and sniping. Pretty much the "jack of all trades" of the group
A jolly dwarf face/shaman named John "Greasy" McNugget, focusing on spellcasting.
A dwarf rigger/decker build/Elven decker (With one of the players playing when the other one is unavailable), both doing the matrix-stuff for the team. I can't say much about the Dwarf since I haven't seen the character yet. The Elf decker was built for my little brother by me and is a decent shot, a decent liar and can sneak a bit too, but mostly focuses on the Matrix.
Group B:A dwarf infiltrator/demolitions expert. Sniping, lockpicking and demolitions (Where have I heard this before...)
A human hermetic mage focusing on mind-control and making others do his dirty work (the player is experienced enough to know not to munchkin this)
A elf gang boss (like the Ancients, only more minor) working as the face. Has an interesting chance for a metaplot to develop around his gang and a rival Ork gang. The character idea is so that he can call for backup in the form of members of the gang, but obviously that won't work in actual shadowruns and contact abuse will make the gang resent him.
A human technomancer doing the matrix stuff with infiltration skills. Useless in actual combat but capable of downing people with a pistol crossbow stealthily (injection bolts with narcoject).
A human rigger/street samurai. Bossing around a few drones whilst rushing to melee or using automatics for combat. Main fighter of the group.
The scenario ideasI have planned out a campaign of six runs with three runs actually having anything to do with each other and three acting as filler.
1: Urban brawl - Extraction
The first run is given to the players by their respective Fixers or other contacts. They're told to meet up in the better part of Seattle in a high-class restaurant. They go there, look out of place, and are herded into the back room with a few NPC runners.
The Ork greeting them will tell them that he's a member of one of the ARES Urban Brawl teams and that there is a match on saturday. With the new regulations, the people behind UB have decided to allow magicians to enter the game. A team for Saeder-Krupp has gotten themselves an extremely promising spellcaster and they want him on their team. The problem is that he is guarded like the crown jewels so the only time when he can be extracted is during an actual game...
The main point for the players is to infiltrate the playing area whilst keeping out of sight of the players and cameras, hacking them if necessary, and then somehow stunning the mage during one of the rounds and getting him out of the arena before anyone notices. Or if someone does notice, either silencing them or removing the evidence.
The group will succeed even if they are spotted as long as the mage is brought out of the game. They are promised a bonus if they succeed without causing the game to be interrupted. Failing that, the Johnson will inform that their "bonus" was used for bribes, cosmetic surgery of the player and other forms of "damage control".
If the players succeed well, this will be the "trigger" behind the third mission.
2: Terrafirst! - Insertion
The group, now being bonded slightly, receive their next mission. upon arriving to the meeting spot in the barrens, an Ork shaman will ask them to follow him. The meeting spot itself is full of terrafirst members, making an all-out fight a very bad idea for all parties involved. So the players are nearly forced into following the Ork for a drive into an abandoned dock in Tacoma.
Upon arrival, the Shaman is found out not to be the Johnson, but instead just a spokesperson for the actual Johnson who is a powerful spirit of water. Telling how there is a facility that claims to be cleaning the water but is actually just a front for a corp to dump sewage, toxins and whatnot into the lake. The usual evil corp pollution stuff. The spirit cannot attack on it's own due to the pollution being too much for her OR due to the place being magically guarded too well. Any ideas on which would be the better, if not both?
This is a "feel good" kind of run. The players will not get much money but will get the "gratitude" of the spirit (a service from a force... 7-10 spirit, which would be good?), some money from TerraFirst! and also gain a contact which they can use for explosives and other terrorist-ish stuff if they need it.
The run itself involves getting into the island housing the facility, infiltrating the facility itself and planting a powerful alchemical preparation in there, activating it/leaving it to activate on it's own and getting the hell out of there before the magic will do it's... well, magic.
If the players didn't succeed very well in the first run, this run will be used by the Johnson to blackmail the runners into accepting the next run.
3: Cyberzombie - assassination/destruction
This is the BIG thing of the set. The one on which big money and big risks are riding on.
Aztechnology has managed to work out the chance of creating a CyberZombie in seattle. The runners are hired to "disrupt a ritual spellcasting" at a medical facility by the Johnson.
The job itself will be fairly easy, since just shooting one of the magicians, technicians, or the person lying on the operating table will disrupt the ritual. The problem is getting into the highly-guarded corp med facility and out of it alive with Aztechnology's paramilitary on their heels. The Johnson is willing to give the players a LOT of money, as this will cost Aztec millions of nuyens. I'm thinking of letting the players name their price and haggle a bit. Nothing TOO ridiculous though, but I'm thinking it may have four zero's per runner if they play their cards right. Also, should I include any paydata/stealable augmentations in the facility itself instead of the ton of money or in addition to it if they actually ask for something like 2K per runner?
I also plan to make sure the players do not realize what they have done. They should get the idea that it wasn't just a normal ritual spellcasting but not tell them straight out what it was.
4: Vory - Drug run
A drug run for vory out of Seattle. Two ways it could go down. As they receive the package, the meet is ambushed by the Triad who offer the players two choices. Give the drugs to them for money or die. The players will either
A) The players will do the smuggling, which means getting into trouble with the Triad (killing the initial group and later being hunted by them) and see a new city. Not sure which one, though. Any ideas? There isn't a dedicated smuggler on either group so the actual smuggling would either need to be fairly simple or include an NPC smuggler? After they arrive to the other city, there will be another, albeit minor complication, I haven't yet decided on what.
B) The group will agree to the Triad's offer, which will result in the Vory coming after the players. I'm also thinking of the Triad giving them a new run in addition to the drug money, prorably wetwork involving a high-ranked Vory-member or delivering something else to the other city, say, a bomb instead of the drugs to the local Vory. Word of their double-cross will get there before the group, though, leading to an ambush or a shootout.
5: Something something.
I'm not entirely sure on this one yet... Gang turf wars, Helping out Humanis or MOM or something stemming from the backstories of the characters or their contacts, perhaps? Something pretty basic and simple so that it'll be a nice break between the double-crosses, free spirits and cyberzombies?
6: Drek hits the fan
At this point I'm hoping the players have forgotten about the Cyberzombie until this hits them in the face. The players will either wake up to their doors being kicked in, people emptying automatic weapons into their apartments or (hopefully) to a call from a contact notifying them or the players noticing something from their own surveillance network (every shadowrunner should know what's going on outside their home at every moment they're in there, right?). Point is that Aztec has gotten the players hunted down and is determined to make an example of them. Assuming they don't die in the initial shootout, they will be captured or escape (I'm hoping for most of them to escape and to actually risk it and make a daring hit-and-run into the vehicle carrying their captured, injured team-mate, if someone gets caught.)
Assuming they're not idiots, they'll connect the dots and see that they have pissed someone off big time and get into hiding and try to find out what's going on. Matrix searches, contact using, maybe even capturing one of their hunters will reveal that someone from Aztechnology is willing to spend big money on killing the players for interrupting the Cyberzombie ritual.
After this there is only one option: Find out who and where this person is and get rid of him before he gets rid of them. Again, high-security infiltration followed by meeting up with the big bad man who tell's the reasons behind the cyberzombies creation and how this ruined his life and was expensive for the corporation. He himself is fairly useless but has someone pretty impressive as his "second hand". Either a great melee adept, a huge troll Street Sam, a spirit-slinging magician or someone else the players will have a great "boss fight" with. Even after disposing of him the big bad will just sigh and submit to his fate, declaring that he will do everything in his power to kill the runners if they leave him alive.
And thus, killing him will end the hunt, and end this set of scenarios.
If you even skimmed through all of this, thank you! Now if you can give my any feedback, ideas, or such it'd be much appreciated.
