[Kulthozuer]

So I have been GM'ing Shadowrun for a decent while about 2 years and playing all kinds of other RPG's. At the end of last session I introduced the character my PC's had been doing jobs for for quite some time and he gave them a new rather huge mission of infiltrating a well guarded mansion and killing a couple of specific people. I don't have much time to design this whole thing as we are playing again tonight and also I would rather prolong this mission for a couple of sessions to make it more dramatic as it will lead to a big secret about the character they are doing missions for. I was wondering if anyone would just give me some general suggustions of side missions you'd have your players do before a big mission like that that would actually relate to the mission and get them closer to the day the finally succeed. I could just give them some other random missions but I'd rather have them work slowly towards accomplishing this and it would also help me better design the end goal if they had worked towards more information or item or things they need. Thanks in advance!

[ArkangelWinter]

Make them have to do certain side missions to get the scoop on the mansion security. The mage in charge of astral security leaves his notes out and everyone knows it, so they have to get them. A spider on staff will give details, maybe help, if they get his wife a rare expensive medicine. One of the housemaids is banging the maintenance guy and they'll give them HVAC blueprints if they make her husband disappear. Stuff like that.

My personal favorite is going through the mechanic. Rich folks love their cars/drones/autogyroes, and maybe some piece of legwork data was left in one that had to be sent to custom shop way out of the characters' usual area of operations.

[Kulthozuer]

Actually that would be perfect because this specific guy loves his cars and we have a rigger on board that would probably love mess with them. Thanks!

[cr4kp0t]

Generally unless the group is already kitted out for top end infiltration then they would need some time just to get gear. i like the running a downtime session and exploring characters out while giving you time to plan fully also a job like this would need substantial amounts of leg work, you don't just jump the fence of a private mansion without being noticed after all.