[TheHug]

So I've run a couple games now but I am still pretty new. I'm looking for pretty general advice on how to both make the setting come to life for the players, and give them a larger scale/longer term view of the world.

Mostly I am finding the structure of Shadowrun scenarios a little at odds with creating longer-term events, locations and NPC's for the players to really dig into over a long-haul campaign. Shadowrun seems based on the players accepting one-off missions from dubious individuals, and carrying them out as efficiently as possible. In that case, it's in the PC's best interest game-wise not to dig deeper than they have to, or necessarily explore just around the next corner, but rather get it done and get paid. The problem is I would like, and I know my players would like, a little bit more ongoing plot beyond a series of one-off missions with disposable NPC's.

 In a D&D game a played for a long time, the DM gave us a primary objective of carrying a giant box halfway across the damn world. Now, this was actually fun for D&D because we met a ton of great NPC's on the way, went to a bunch of towns, and got into all sorts of trouble (fighting things in caves type trouble) along the way. This kind of thing works in D&D, mostly based on setting, but I think it would feel like a pretty arbitrary and fabricated way to lengthen a campaign in Shadowrun.

Obviously, part of this is just going to require a bit more imagination/familiarity with the game on my end, because there is so much there and we do love the setting. But for the GM's who have been doing it for a while, what kind of general techniques do you use to tie your shadowruns together? How do you use the setting to get players to develop their own objectives beyond "geek the guards, steel the doodad, get paid"?

[Pyromaster13]

I myself make a wonder quest maker for D&D since the pure number of options you can give them can lead to many more events such as your box example. But because of the modern technology in shadowrun simple tasks are no longer the case as you can just take a plane across the globe to deliver that same box scenario.

A few good ideas to consider to make shadowrun more challenging or to get your players more devoted to a cause:

-Start making them realize that the more runs they do for a megacorp, the better 'loyalty perks' they will recieve i.e. more rep with Ares = more easy access to Ares weapons and armor, as they will have less black market shopping to do as the corp itself is shuffling gear to them. That should give easy motivation to start a chain of runs together or have a 'main quest' established every few side runs.

-The opposite is also true, the more runs you do against a corp, or runs to hinder it's operations will bring negative interest to the team, watch out particularly for Mitsuhama, Saeder Krupp, and Aztechnology as they have low tolerance for Shadowrunnner hijinks. So entire sessions can be about how to avoid enemy run teams sent to kill/hurt them or you can say a corp trashed all the runner's hideouts and the session can be about retribution.

-You can give runs extremely vague objectives.  One run that a GM and I considered running for a final mission was give a runner team 700k to empty a casino of all it's money, giving them 3 months to do so.  Thus it could last several sessions and can be solved in a myriad of ways such as bribes, vault heist, counting cards, or pure terrorism threats for the casinos cash.  If anything the runners can just take the money and run, leaving the Johnson with an easy reason to send teams after them like the examples above.

-If you want it more D&D-esque I would consider getting the 'Hazard Pay' 4E supplement, since it lets you send runners on jobs in godforsaken locations such as a desert, arctic mountains, or underwater so not only do they have to try and accomplish getting there, but also to survive and possibly remain undetected the whole time whilst trying to accomplish an objective that would be hard on it's own in the city.

-

[Mantis]

Another thing is do is reuse your NPCs. Most runners actually get jobs through a fixer first and then they meet the Johnson. So while the guy footing the bill is some shady one-off type, the point of first contact can be a recurring NPC. Who has his own problems. And wouldn't mind a little help from his runners on occasion.
Besides the fixer, the magicians should have a talismonger contact or two to get materials and spell formulas. And talismongers always need someone to go get odd things from odd places to work magic. In addition, the magician may want to join a magical group at some point for initiation. this provides a whole pack of people who recur and may need help or offer help in a variety of ways.
The tech types need mechanics and hacker havens (like Warez House 24) to supply their software and hardware needs. Sure, as time goes on, a good rigger needs these guys less and less for parts but they still need somewhere to chop that car they used on the last run so it can't be used as evidence. And the team might just need access to a vehicle facility for repair or mods.
My point is, the NPCs make the world seem alive. They shouldn't be just one offs. The team should have a network of contacts who recur and get used every session, whether for equipment, or information about a target or maybe just a favour (to be paid back later). All this is dealing with just one city in a world with thousands. If the team runs off to some other exotic locale, their first step should be new contacts there to get the lay of the land and get gear they couldn't take with them. And the GM gets to introduce new recurring NPCs.
This is just covering ally types. Enemies add another facet of recurring NPCs. 

[Black]

Agree with Mantis.  A Fixer is easily reusable and can help expand the universe.  My Fixer was an up and coming new guy when the team started, now they have trouble meeting with him without being interrupted by 'an important call'.  They almost always meet at Gracies's Ribs, in the shadow of the arcology.

Try have some runs which are about the character's themselves.  My guys have a love/hate relationship with Ares because of several runs they've done due to a player character's history with the mega.

Take a holiday, send them somewhere else as out-of-town talent.  I chose Denver because it exposes the runners to the craziness which are the nation states of the Shadowrun world.  Border crosses, different cultures, all sorts of madness.

[Walks Through Walls]

Mantis makes good points about the contacts of the characters being plot hooks. About a third of the adventures in my current campaign come about this way. I also have a plan of events that are going on around them in Seattle where my campaign is set. Other groups that have motives and their own agenda. The runners then get thrown into these plans from time to time. Some times on one side others on a different one.
There is a millionaire that has hired the runners 3 or 4 times to do different things. That and there are several seemingly unrelated runs that are coming towards a goal for a different group.

Also just because they can fly the McGuffin across the world doesn't mean they can't have adventures along the way. In one of my campaigns the team was flying something and they got shot down which started the real adventure at that point.

[Herr Novak]

The Shadowrun Missions are a nice example for a series of connected runs. Or you can have a look at a campaign book like Ghost Cartels.

[raggedhalo]

I run a wiki for my game over at pbworks.com - if I was starting again now, I'd use Obsidian Portal instead.  I post up "news stories" that allow me to illustrate changes in the setting, that PCs can investigate in downtime.  Sometimes that's simply stuff like reporting the way they shot down a bunch of gangers and it turned out two of them died, other times it's "Corp X is reeling from Event Y" so they can see what they've changed.  I don't do it after every adventure but it's another way of seeding plot.

My game also has quite a rich between-shadowruns life, where people have a week of downtime (at least) for every adventure and they can use that to develop skills and contacts or investigate things.

[Mantis]

I'll add a point about props. For our campaign, after a run that has some sort of impact, like shooting up gangers or breaking into a facility and stealing a prototype or whatever, I will write up a news article so the players can see what the game world sees of what they do. I also use it to seed other campaign or adventure ideas.
I've attached an example. This was the news the week after we did Denver Missions SM18 A Very Bad day. Since in our time line it happens just after the Lone Star/KE switch their are articles about how that affects things too. So I use these to introduce fluff changes from source books as well. Just another idea to make your game world alive.

[TheHug]

Thanks! this is all terrific advice.

It's only been a couple sessions which I ran as pretty simple B&E jobs, but with slight twists hinting at bigger stuff. Next session is this week, and now that everyone's got a little bit of cash/karma there is sure to be some talk of character advancement. This is also going to be a mission where I play up legwork and contacts a little more, so the whole idea of owing people favors could come into play.

Also this mission is going to be a request from the Yakuzas to retrieve a kidnapped puppet girl. Once they rescue her from the kidnapper, I'm planning on having her return to full lucidity after being away from the yak parlor, and promise the players big rewards if they don't take her back, asking them to instead take her down to L.A.  It'll be a good test of greed vs. morality vs. fear of yakuzas on the players, and if I can get a couple missions out of a road trip down the coast it could be sweet.

[inca1980]

I know exactly how you feel Hug and I felt the same way when I started running SR when comparing it to my old AD&D 2nd edition days as a kid when all our adventures were part of some epic overarching quests.

I got to thinking though and even in D&D, you still have a basic template....which is the dungeon crawl.  So it's not much different from SR whose template is the basic run.  Both games are structured around this template but the potential is endless.  So just like in D&D, you gotta just break the mold.  Don't take this basic template for your guide in designing runs. I would instead take the novels and stories written about the world as your guide.  For example, in AD&D my guiding light was the dragonlance novels, not a dungeon crawl.  So for SR I try and do the same.

One way i do this is by not worrying how long each of my runs are.  One run usually takes us three to four sessions and this ends up making each run feel more epic. Now I adjust Karma accordingly so that characters feel like their advancing in real world time on par with how they would if it were 3-4 separate runs.

The other problem is that shadowrunners are supposed to mainly just care about money so sometimes it's difficult to develop bigger themes because many runners will just not feel any incentive to risk their lives.  What I end up doing here is showing the runners that just like most crime, shadowrunning isn't a business you can just dip into and pull out of as soon as you want out.  Once you're wrapped up in it, you kind of have no other choice but to keep playing "the game."  Especially when they get mixed up with big world-scale forces.  So for example, my current table-top group accepted a run from a dragon, and unwittingly helped it summon an epic demi-god and now they're literally branded with the demi-god's spirit formula and need to run for their lives from everyone who's trying to banish this demi-god and trying to stop it from destroying Seattle.  They end up doing odd jobs here and there across the world, but the whole time running away from really epic forces.  The cool thing here too is that they essentially don't give a shit if Seattle gets destroyed but instead their main thrust is saving their own skin because the only way to save Seattle is by the runners dying.

Emphasize the fact that shadowrunning is highly illegal....i know a lot of the fluff makes it seem like just a night job, and big-time runners are basically celebrities, but in reality it is highly dangerous.  Corporation act just like the freakin mexican cartels...throwing down a hefty-bag full of heads on a dance floor just to scare people....For example, I was reading Gun Haven 2, and in the comments when they talk about Deathdealer ammo, they talk about how S-K killed a runner and then bit by bit went on to kill ALL of his family.  So the main motivation for runners to get wrapped up in plot is their desire to just stay alive because they are secretly wanted criminals, even if it's off the record. 

Half of you're adventures shouldn't even be runs....they should be called something more like Sixth World Adventures.  For example, have their favorite contact call them up....but instead of having a run...having him sniffling and gurgling and obviously in a tremendous amount of pain.  Some Aztechnology corp. sec has got him and is working him over....electrodes on his nuts and everything...blood mages bleeding him dry....make it graphic.  The corp wants the data-file that the team stole from them on the previous run....they got their hostages copy, but the team has the only other copy.  Instead of giving them money give them some extra Karma for doing the run.  They could also snag some loot which would translate to money.

So basically add a ton of drama and let characters sand-box a whole lot.....instead of debugging, just have whatever they chose as their actions to be the catalyst for whatever you had planned out.  Don't think of an adventure as a rigid staged world you create and then the shadowrunners slowly explore it as if it were a video game.  It's better to keep it fluid and have coolness and drama be the #1 priority.  Don't get attached to something you planned out and be able to change the details of it to fit the new course of the plot.  Don't let them know that you're changing things up on them, but only give the impression that you had it totally planned out and that an encounter they have was there waiting for them all along.   

Also don't be scared to put a lot of sex, drugs and over the top all around pimpin' in your game too...that shit sells.

[ArkangelWinter]

let that be the catalyst

[Bira]

I'd say a good way to have your players engage with the world is have their characters engage with it as well. Shadowrunners, or at least Shadowrun PCs, aren't supposed to just care about money. You can make them as complex and multi-faceted as you like. Work with your players to create characters who have interesting personal goals beyond just getting paid for the next run, and work those goals into your campaign planning.  Think of it a bit like a TV series, where sometimes a character gets a focus episode. It doesn't have to be a standard run that happens to touch on that character's background - it could be an opportunity for them to approach their goals on their own, where the adventure doesn't start with a meeting for a change. "You find a clue to the whereabouts of your missing father", "you have the chance to strike a blow for that cause you believe in", "the bastard mobster who killed your family will be vulnerable next week", and so on.

[Leigion]

   I am going to apologize now because this might get long.
Best advise i can give is to make it all come to life is have this struggle to live day to day not just with daily survival but sustanence for their body mind and spirit. Also making it monotonous in some ways like long hour driving. Seattle isn't flat its hilly and has mountains which equals out to long driving. Hours of diving i am not saying play a whole session with just driving now don't get me wrong, just don't hand wave your there. Draw it out describe stuff encourage them to talk about in the drive. Have stuff happen if they are listening to a scanner or the news .When describing make sections different like housing and describe people and places they see. Another thing don't forget the cars nice areas have nice cars bad areas have beaters. Describe the skyline with planes, drones, choppers, and the water with boats, ferry's and barges.

When describing the hood make it depressing don't just say its depressing. You got to talk about the garbage laying on the streets the dead grass. Areas that are really bad take a place like Detroit and get some pic's with all the shelled out homes. Now imagine if they didn't have welfare how awful it become. Like Mad Max with warlords that will butcher family's with machetes, holding a few blocks to their kingdom. Show some living like kings that have good operations of organ legging or sex slaves being sold drug dealing in non btl's too. Seriously try to scar their brains don't make it cute, funny or cool. Make deranged people as well just crazy no rhyme, no reason just yelling wearing grimy clothes, with one shoe and one sock.. Show gang/tribe wars over water and food. Disease like lepercy, polo grab picks of Africa and describe people starving to death. Flys, rats, roaches taking what falls, devouring a caucus in the noon sun. Don't forget Cannibalism in some serious fucked up places and don't forget ghouls just don't go over board with em because you can shoot a ghoul you cant shoot poverty.
 
When describing wage slaves describe them oblivious total consumers like swarming termites gorging a table leg. Practically toppling over each other to get the newest thing, anything, something.That thing to fill there meaningless life. Have one go bonkers every now and again like little time bombs at a strip mall. They all of a sudden believe themselves to be the 20th person in line when the doors open on black Friday. See another having a total meltdown on a escalator franticly crying and sobbing trying to get off halfway up going the wrong way. Play it like they just had an epiphany of the meaning of life and realized they wern't in it, it was all for nothing, all a show ,a beautiful gilded cage that's just a rat race nothing more. Catch the glimps of a dear in the headlight's as they were just standing listening to their I-pod shoes, then watch' em dive right in front of the train.

When you describe filthy rich don't just stop at sociopathic empathy with designer clothes. More then just a million dollar smile and diamond plated credit card with the loftiest golf course membership.. Circle twice the line in Darwinism that breads that perfect xenophobic monster. That which thinks they are the purest bread, blue ribbon winner of the westminister show for people. Describe this insatiable hunger to devour everything they see that isn't theirs like neurotic 2 year olds with ADHD flying high off pixxie sticks lost in a toy store wanting more. When the endless games in their minds grow cold as the ice water in their veins, have it slowly begin to desire an experience of something that mere money cant buy... because if it could they would have it in stock. This something they explore the blackest depths of what the mind can conceive, always searching for this dark delight that will make them feel powerful once more. This thing they never truly find because they siphoned off their soul long ago for a few dollars more.

[Wakshaani]

A small deviation.

One of the problems that Marvel writers run into is The Punisher. How do you make recurring characters for a guy whose whole schtick is that he kills off villains? Answer: Focus on his allies.

A Shadowrunning team often develops a nemsis, at least for an season's worth of episodes, like, say, "Mister Lanister, director of Simtastic Studios, an entertainment firm under the Amalgamated Studios brand. Lanister's a ruthless bastard with his hands in several pies ... his starlets are addicted to BTLs, so he can mercilessly wring them out (And take advantage of them as a side bonus), he's in bed with teh Yaks, a street gang (The Actor's Guild, a gang who all wear bad halloween masks of famous actors) is in his pocket as his studio makes the BTLs that they distribute and he uses them to lay some weight on people, he's looking to buy up land near his studio to expand and doesn't care where the current occupants wind up, he's invested in several local businesses, he has a few fixers on call who, in addition to their normal work, also scout for acting talent (Movies with Shadowrunners in the lead always sell well!) ... he's just in a lot of places at once, with a light hand.

This lets his name keep popping up, his company pop up, but you can't get directly at him until you climb up the ranks a bit. Go through the "MidBosses" until you get to the Main Boss, as it were.

You should also focus on friends and allies, who *aren't* getting shot by teh runners, and expand their stories now and then, to remind them that things happen off camera.

A regular one is, of course, other Shadowrunning teams. Six is the number of choice as it's small enough to learn and large enough to factionalize (7 entities is the sociology standard for maximum Michavellianness and teh PCs count as one of those.) This gives job rivals who will be bidding for the same jobs as the PCs, who might show up in opposition to them at some point (Sorry chummers, it's just biz), who can be used as contacts or who can use the RUNNERS as contacts (Nothing more fun that having an NPC call up a PC and try to use them as a Legwork source, just to show them what it sounds like form the other side)... Give each group a name, a hook, and fill in members as needed. For example:

0) Baker's Dozen, a legender street team lead by one Charlie Baker and held up as the gold standard in the city for what a Shadowrunning team should be like. Depite the name, there are only five members. They eventually hit "The Big Time" and got hired by Ares a full-time assets. They live in high-rise apartments, eat real food, get a steady paycheck, have SINs... can you imagine it?

1) The Boomers. A group of runners who're known for outrageous behavior, loud noise, explosions, and no self restraint. They get monkeywrenching and distraction jobs almost exclusively as they wouldn't know subtle if it hit them with a brick to the face. Bright colors! Loud voices! CHAINSAW HANDS!!!

2) The Sisterhood. An all-female runner team that's more famous (rightly or wrongly) for being assembled from other runners based on looks. All of them have SimRecorders and sell their exploits via underground SimDealers. The tend to be flashy when on camera but can do it sneaky as well.

3) Warf Rats. From a poorer section of the city, they're known for doing anything if teh price is right ... wetwork, rape, burning down churches, whatever. As long as nuyen is involved, they don't care. Kinda craven, they dislike direct opposition or anyone who can fight back. They have a lot of friends in low places, and their leader is in tight with teh Rat Shaman guild (as he's a rat shaman) ... those who cross them wind up having ritual issues.

4) Johnny Five. Fairly new band that's still feeling their way around. Roughly 1 die less in all important skills than the PC Shadowrunning team. Every member's name is John in one way or another.

5) Knights of the Drop Tables. A Decker-heavy team that is good at sneaky infiltration but terribly in a stand-up fight. Tend to crow loudly about their victories, always hacking seme grafitti or reprogramming the I/C to say "Ni!" to every login, and so on. Good at what theyd o, but that evidence is going to come back and haunt them and everyone knows it.

6) Shadowrun Inc, a large team (Over a dozen members!) that has a rotating mission basis, where members are called in based on their talents as it applies to the mission. Very professional, but not terribly loyal to one another. Largely expected to be the next group to 'Sell out' and go Corporate (If they haven't already! Oh rumor mongers...)

7) The Green Machine, a band of 'hooding Shadowrunners with a clear social concious. Do lots of pro bono work and target polluting or anti-meta corps whenever possible. Quite adept at demolitions.

From there, add some other fixers (Some of which might want to hire the team away from their current fixer, up to and including having Shadowruns called against their current guy!), deckers, Samurai... give everyone at least one friend, a rival, and eventually an enemy. As you pad out NPCs, they'll start doing things and growing.

For instance, one I use is Shakey Sam, the Tremblin' Man. He's old (late 50's), has to shuffle instead of walk, has trouble speaking at times, and is well known for the shakes that always have him ... his hands are the worst. He looks to be homeless and is fairly unkempt and smells a bit, but there're many hushed rumors about him. Nobody ever looks at him as he's "Shamed" by his condition, but they all watch him out of the corner of their eyes. It's said that he was the very first Street Samurai, a living legend, but that his 'wires went bad over the years and now, well, this is what the future holds for young Samurai. You live too long, you don't go out in a blaze of glory, you wind up old, decrepit, and your body betrays you. You look at him too long, you realize that that could be you, and that's to hard for most people to accept. Shakey Sam goes around to assorted bars and eateries, but he won't take charity exactly. You can't buy him a drink or food, but you buy some of his art ... he paints, you see, and sells his (Bad, due to his hands) art, which he trades for food or drink.

Rumor is that two years back, one punk had too much to drink and started pushing Sam around. Made a big show of it like he was a big guy... until Sam slashed his face with a katana from seemingly nowhere at a speed no one could follow. Perfectly smooth, not a hint of tremble, absolutely perfect swing that gave the punk a "wide smile"as the blade went through each side of his mouth, never hitting a tooth. He managed a bow, sheethed the sword, then left quietly. (Tracking this rumor down? It's true! A waitress who was there can also add that, after he got outside, Sam had an absolute fit, his body shaking worse than ever as part of his nervous system decayed from the activity. She helped him for a couple of days and found out way more, but keeps it private)

Sam could serve as a mentor for the team's Samurai, teaching him all manner of customs that he learned back when he was a Renraku man. He paints, does calligraphy, archery, is an absolute master of the blade, but his greatest love is a proper tea ceremony. Undertaking it in his condition is insanely hard, of course, but he'd love nothing more to find a right, honorable person to pass his knowledge to before he dies.

Maybe the group will ignore him, maybe they'll worry about him, but he'll be there as an NPC, full of backstory, whenever needed.

Don't be discouraged if people don't play with your toys, however. Sometimes, people don't care about that Ork with five kids to feed and a lucky rabbit's foot ... they just want to shoot a Tuskr and call it a day.

[Wakshaani]

Here's a few random fixers, beause they should all have a bit of flavor.

1) Max Green is your typical Hollywood Agent type. He talks fast, makes big promises, chomps through cigars and has rings on every finger, gold around his neck, balding (With just a TERRIBLE toupe, doesn't anyone ever tell him how bad it looks?) and always seems to have a deal ready. Speaks in Yiddish constantly. Always seems to be working two or three calls at once. Pretends to care but really is just after cash. He's a dealmaker and talent scout.

2) Charlie Hustle is a poor man's version of Max. He's young, from the barrens, and SINless, but want sto be a big time player some day. Every day he's hustling, trying to make a living off of pure moxy. He's smaller and doesn't fight so well, but a beating doesn't scare him off. He's got nowhere to go but up, after all. "Don't hate the player, hate the game."

3) Mikhail. Just Mikhail. You need weapon? He sell weapon. Kalishnakovs, the real ones, not bad nano-knockoff. Pistols? Da. You need rocket launcher, he can get rocket launcher. You need work? See someone else. Mikhail sell weapon. You need weapon, you come back. Dosvidanya tovarisch.

4) Sarah Conner is a talent scout of sorts, looking for 'runners with skills that she can pass to Mister Johnson. She doesn't ask a lot of questions ... n this business, questions can get you killed. Keep your head down, your nose clean, and don't poke into anyone else's business. She offers annonymity, and 'Mr Johnson' brings her work. If you need a job, you ask her, she may known someone. Need gear? She might know sombody. Need to lie low for a while? She might know just the place...

5) Back in the day, Shazam was one hot hermetic, tossing lightning bolts and turning bullets. One day, he made the wrong girl's father angry and found that his car had a bomb in it the hard way. More metal than meat, his magic a painful memory, Shazam's using the only thing he has left... his contacts. He can help you out, but it don't come free. Well, unless you're a mage. He has a weakness for 'em. He gets angry at them often for not realizing what kind of a gift that they have and how easily it can all go away, but... he remembers what it was like, to have the magic moving through you? To have your blood be ALIVE with power, to see your hands glowing just before unleashing astral energy ... GOD he remembers. He'd trade his right arm for the chance to sling mojo again, but, well, that arm's already gone and the magic ain't coming back.