[jonathanc]

For a few years now, I've been wanting to run a Shadowrun campaign loosely based on the premise of Bram Stoker's Dracula - the players are hired to do legwork which, unbeknownst to them, is preparing the way for a terrible evil to take root in their neighborhood. Once they figure this out, they then have to set about undoing their work.

I'm a bit unsure of how I want to work the details, though. For example, I was thinking that a non-Great dragon might be a better fit for the setting than a Vampire....or perhaps a hyper-intelligent Ghoul with followers who is hoping to set up a fief in the Barrens. Any thoughts?

For the starting premise, I was thinking that I'd have the players run across a dying Shadowrunner carrying a cheap-looking Commlink that turns out to be pretty heavily secured. Upon cracking it, or getting a contact to do so, they find a heavily encrypted file and directions to a meet that (presumably) the unfortunate fellow was headed to. If they show up to the meet with the data, they are handsomely paid and  asked if they would be interested in more work, since the Johnson (an intermediary for the big guy; sort of like Renfield, but less obviously deranged) lost his last contractor.

At this point, I'd start giving them jobs, aimed at:

- Preventing the purchase of a building/plot of land
- Kidnapping an architect
- Blackmailing a building contractor
- Striking at a magical group that could potentially threaten our big bad guy

Any ideas for more tasks? Or good ways to obfusticate the true purpose of these tasks? For example, I was thinking that instead of striking directly at the magical group, they might be hired to frame them for an attack on a corp asset. Instead of being told that they're blackmailing a building contractor, perhaps they're hired to follow his wife, ostensibly because he thinks she's cheating on him. When they deliver the photos to him, they'll think they're delivering on a snoop job, but he'll think that they're threatening his wife by showing how close they can get.

[jonathanc]

 

[Black]

One of the Secrets of Power novels had....


SPOILER!!!!


EXTRA SPOILER SPACE!!!!







An immortal wendigo who had slept through the downturn in magic.  An incredibly power magic user, he constantly masked his aura etx so no one knew who he was.  Was a corporate boss based out of Mexico, but also a Druid in a circle of influential and powerful druids in England, and I'm fairly sure, a Toxic Shaman to boost.  The characters actually help out an associate of his to kidnap anyone with royal blood (several hundred years removed) so that they can sacrifice them to summon a spirit to powerful enough to put their clamiant on the english throne.  Once the heroes discover that the 'extractions' they have been performing are actually victims of blood magic rituals, they start to try and bring down their enemy.  However, its only at the end that they discover that ther real enemy is the toxic immortal wendigo... 

So lots of things like 'corporate extractions', you could also do other missions to acquire property (which happens to be on auspicious locations), runs against enemies who could be in the know.  Maybe acquiring magic items which may be harmful to the Big Bad and handing them over to him...  Heck, if a mission which seems harmless but results in tragic loss of life and frames them as the bad guys could be good motivation to get 'revenge' and clear their name.

Is a cool idea, enjoy 

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Actually, something that could work very well would be a corrupter-type Toxic Shaman.  Plans for a particular area, sure, but why not try to turn the entire city into a pit of corrupting sludge and poisonous fume?

[Phylos Fett]

Any ideas for more tasks? Or good ways to obfusticate the true purpose of these tasks? For example, I was thinking that instead of striking directly at the magical group, they might be hired to frame them for an attack on a corp asset. Instead of being told that they're blackmailing a building contractor, perhaps they're hired to follow his wife, ostensibly because he thinks she's cheating on him. When they deliver the photos to him, they'll think they're delivering on a snoop job, but he'll think that they're threatening his wife by showing how close they can get.

You could go The Usual Suspects route and have them working for the Renfield NPC a few steps removed and keeping the runs from having any particular rhyme or reason (from an outside perspective) and even intersperse a few other runs from other sources among them, so that they can't be sure what runs belong together if they do work it out...

[jonathanc]

Nothing would please me more than to weave a complex web of seemingly-unrelated runs....but unless I end up with at least one player who loves detective work as much as I do, it'll all be for naught.

I did have an idea for one more run, though: instead of extracting an architect, extracting a retired, eccentric security expert. He'd be holed up in a compound of his own design....it'd be almost like a Shadowrun dungeon crawl, with all kinds of traps to be overcome in order to get to the guy.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Check out the third (third?) book in the Matador series, The Machiavelli Interface.  You want Jersey Reason, who in the book actually lives on a little island up Seattle way ...

Otherwise, I think it's about time for you to talk to your players, and see if they ARE interested in a deep complicated plotline.

[corax]

I'm actually about to run a small campaign based on a deranged vampire who believes he is a certain reincarnated religious figure trying to bring about the next plague. plague in this case is the HMHVV krieger strain,

the plot is started off with alot of prominent fixers and runners being murdered. So a survivor who has figured out their plan hires the crew to do odd seemingly unconnected jobs to foil said vamp. eventually they figure it out, track the vamp to his lair in an observatory overlooking a dam.

In the showdown if they botch it he will throw himself into the water as a last ditch way of spreading the virus (he is a krieger carrier too).

if it continues beyond that point they have to deal with the barrens becoming overrun with ghouls, heading towards zombie apocalypse style of things.

[Phylos Fett]

Nothing would please me more than to weave a complex web of seemingly-unrelated runs....but unless I end up with at least one player who loves detective work as much as I do, it'll all be for naught.

That's a shame - most of the players I've had in the past always look to see if there is a bigger picture, and try to find out as much about who is behind the 'run as possible (either before or after the event).

I did have an idea for one more run, though: instead of extracting an architect, extracting a retired, eccentric security expert. He'd be holed up in a compound of his own design....it'd be almost like a Shadowrun dungeon crawl, with all kinds of traps to be overcome in order to get to the guy.

I've actually done some of those - they can be pretty darn cool. Of course, if I'd seen some of the TV series episodes and movies that I've seen now, they'd be even cooler.

[Walks Through Walls]

Nothing would please me more than to weave a complex web of seemingly-unrelated runs....but unless I end up with at least one player who loves detective work as much as I do, it'll all be for naught.

I don't know about that. I ran a campaign that had a deep underlying plot, and none of the players put anything together for the longest time. None of them really took to hunting down what was going on, and were focused on the nuyen and their next piece of gear. When it came close to the end game and the pieces started falling into place they suddenly had an oh my goodness moment. It was amusing to watch when the light bulb came on so to speak and they then scrambled to do what they thought was the "right" thing.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

... which can be worth the extra work all by itself ...

[Walks Through Walls]

... which can be worth the extra work all by itself ...

Yes. Yes it can. 
 
Of course it is even better when they think they have pegged what is going on and then suddenly the world takes a left turn on them especially when all the clues are there and they just didn't put it together or put it together wrong. A classic example of this was in my old game the mage thought this other group was on their side and kept feeding them information on what the team was doing only to latter find out that they were working for the group hunting her.