[lunarboy4]

Okay, this is my first time GMing Shadowrun. I have played for a year, so I’m not totally new, but I do not have a lot of GM experience. I am only doing a one-shot, and it’s interesting.

The job is that all of the runners have a mutual friend who happens to lead a legitimate life as a teacher. One day, he is kidnapped after school. His significant other returns home, notices he’s not home, and starts to call around to find him, knowing that this is unusual behavior for him. With no luck, and knowing that it’s too soon to call up the cops, he calls upon the help of the teacher’s shadowrunner friends.

All that they know is that the teacher was last seen tutoring a student who struggles with math after school. So, they begin their investigation.
What they will, hopefully, discover is that the teacher found out about a drug dealer within the suburban school who is paying off the principal to continue selling. Also, the principal is extorting money from the school as well. They will interview various students (or obtain information about these students) to find out that the star football player (and ork who is being pressured to become a professional athlete but secretly wants to be an artist) and the drug dealer (a charismatic elf who is known for being ultra social and throwing the best parties) kidnapped him when the principal ordered them to after the teacher confronted her about the drug dealer. She plans on killing him in 76 hours after the runners receive the job, giving it enough time for his disappearance to die down in the media and giving her enough time to find a place to dump the body.

For them to obtain the information, I plan on offering them substitute teaching positions within the school (the significant other is a teacher as well and has enough pull with the other teachers to convince them to take some time off) so they can investigate from within the school with little to no problems, as long as they stay under the principal’s radar. She’s too concerned with her own money, her hacking hobby, and normal principal duties to really notice them unless they do something really stupid or noticeable.

The information will come from several students themselves. For example, the last student to see him was a little nerd girl who has trouble with math and stays with him after school for tutoring (in an innocent manner, he keeps the door open so he doesn’t get accused of having sex with her, not that he would). She was getting tutoring when the teacher was approached by a new student (an African American Troll who transferred from an urban school after he left a gang for refusing to kill an innocent man for no reason and moved to his aunt’s house) who revealed that the popular kid offered him drugs. The teacher immediately asked the nerdy girl to go ahead and go home since he needed to talk to the principal. Another witness is the head cheerleader who is dating the football player. She was standing outside the principal’s office when the teacher went into the office and started talking to the principal. The door was shut after there was mention of a drug dealer within the school grounds. She has been suspicious that her boyfriend was doing drugs, and hearing that there was a dealer within the school only made her more nervous. She tried to call him, but he didn’t answer. Another student that may provide useful information is an emo girl. She is a drug user who does drugs with the football player and often has sex with him while they are high. She has developed feelings for the football player, attracted to his artistic side. She was going to go get some drugs when the dealer received the message from the principal and he said that they might be found out.

Of course, there will be matrix clues as well. For example, there are monetary transactions between the students and the drug dealer that can be traced. Also, there are camera feeds stored on a hard wired system in the principal’s office that contain the incriminating evidence. A cred stick is stored in the principals desk (this week’s payment that she has yet to store in her secret account).  And the principal and the drug dealer have encrypted messages that they exchange.

Okay, would these students who do drugs have astral scars? How bad does the addiction have to be before you receive scars? Because I have a mystic with astral sight on the team, and I know that she would be able to see drug users.

Also, finally, the mansion that the drug dealer lives at (his parents are never home) will have a spirit or two for the mystic to deal with, be defended by the principal/wannabe hacker, and there will be a security guard, the ork football player, and the elf drug dealer with small shooting abilities for my gun bunny to handle. Does that sound like enough combat? I mean, I don’t want it to be heavy combat, but I don’t want to throw it out the window either.

Any other criticism or advice would be appreciated as well! Thanks.

[nightslasthero]

Before you run, think through how the players might go about finding out information. So for example, since he is a friend they have access to his personal belongings and since this is one shot, one way they can do it is by getting a mage to track down the location of their friend without the need for any investigation. They likely case is that a hacker/technomancer character is going to attempt to view any cameras and then the PCs attempt to use legwork to find any additional information. (Please note, you should not say there are no cameras at the school to avoid this, instead say there are cameras and then when the hacker hacks into the cameras he sees the room completely empty during the time the teacher was supposed to be there. or that part of the video is simply missing.) Also for the magic route, you can always have "something" blocking the mage from being able to locate the person.

I also think it is a bit weak on why she hasn't killed him right away. I mean you can kill someone and then sell the body to organ leggers. No need to hide the body at all, gotta love the 6th world. Keep in mind that she is dealing with drug dealers and they obviously would know where to hide the body (i,e, organ leggers). But seriously, one of the common themes in shadowrun is a person creates a record in the matrix that is set to go public in the event of their untimely death. The reason that the principle hasn't killed him yet is that she fears he has in fact set up something along those lines and is trying to track it down. Perhaps she has already found its existence, and simply can't crack it.

Also unless the significant other mentions the idea of pretending to be substitute teachers, it is unlikely that the players themselves are going to decide to do that. The likely goal from a PC standpoint (and especially from a Shadowrun point) is to sneak into the school at dark and see if they can find any clues.

There should not be money transactions between the students to the drug dealer that can be traced. They make uncertified credsticks exactly for that purpose, and no drug dealer worth anything is going to take money from a traceable source to a traceable source. Way too much risk involved.

As for the combat encounter, if you have a spirit, you need to have a mage (or a good reason for why a free spirit is chilling out with the drug dealer), as spirits typically need to be summoned by a mage. The exception is free spirits (Entirely possibly). The best thing to do is to scrap the spirit and go with a mage. If for whatever reason the spirit kills the mystic, there is no way the rest of the team stands a chance against the spirit. Under no circumstance use two spirts against one magician character. Unless the spirits are intentionally weak, he won't be able to deal with them. Also, is it reasonable that the highschool kids have wired reflexes? Keep in mind that the PCs should all be having around three initiative passes. (At least two each). And the PC's will likely have cyberware. Your highschool students are going to have to pack some serious cyberware to be a challenge to a team of shadowrunners, especially if one of them is a troll. My suggestion would be to use a legit drug dealer who isn't a highschool student to represent an actual challenge to the PCs. (and auto-explain where all this deadly stuff came from).

One important issue is that assume once the PC's figure out that the principle is responsible, should they run into her after that, it is likely they will attempt to kidnap her, and force her to talk and hand over their friend. Just remember that with any derailment, you should just go with it and enjoy where the players take the story.

[lunarboy4]

I was actually planning on presenting the substitute teacher idea when they take the job. The significant other is a teacher as well and has convinced some other teachers to call in sick and arranged with their fixer to have them be at the top of the sub list. I know that it is railroading, but I really like the idea of immersing themselves in his life and seeing the dark side of public school systems.

I like your idea for the reason why she hasn't killed him. The main reason that I want him to be alive is because I want him to emerge in the stressful situation and send them random messages utilizing his simrig complex form that help lead them to the popular kid's mansion. So, I will use the data trail going public threat as to why she hasn't killed him yet.

Duly noted on the traceable transactions. I will come up with another clue if need be. I can make up some pretty good stuff on the go.

I didn't want to throw a mage at them because I figured that his rich parents would have a spirit patrolling and/or defending their home (this is a suburban school that is full of families that are very successful). I understand though that a mage would be better so that the other members of the team could help. But I figured that having a spirit as security would be more cost effective for a family that is on the low end of the upper class.

Also, on the combat. I was planning on throwing 2 high school kids at them (both of them not very good at combat and having no augmentations just because their parents haven't gotten them for them yet since they're still developing) and a security guard (who will be a little cybered, definately with wired reflexes at one and a couple of other things, I haven't finished with him yet). Also, I don't think that any of the PC have more than one initiative pass in the meat body world (the exception being the hacker who has 3 while VR in the matrix). So I'm not worried about initiative passes as much. Also, I don't want it to be a very challenging combat scene. I want the emphasis of the session to be the legwork.

And I realize that they will derail it and look forward to them doing so. I'm just interested in seeing how they will act in this kind of situation.

[Xzylvador]

" She plans on killing him in 76 hours after the runners receive the job "

I don't get this? Why the wait? It sounds like a classic hollywood-esque villain mistake. Why not just kill him and dispose of the evidence asap?

Edit/addendum:
So as not to be criticizing without offering something: Maybe she/they didn't have the guts to actually kill someone, instead leaving him tied up and gagged somewhere? Then they'd have time to rescue him until he dies of starvation/dehydration. (~4 days for a normal adult could be about right. That'd fit in the 76-hours after they receive their mission.)

[nightslasthero]

Alright, I can see a wealthy family hiring a mage to keep some spirits around the house, but not actively hiring the mage himself. or Possibly they have a free spirit watching the place. I like the idea as a one-shot. I guess my only issue is I don't see highschool students being able to last five seconds with a group of shadowrunners. Granted, I also haven't seen the players character sheets.

[JustADude]

I guess my only issue is I don't see highschool students being able to last five seconds with a group of shadowrunners. Granted, I also haven't seen the players character sheets.

In the real world... oh hell no. A well-designed 400-BP Shadowrunner is a seriously nasty customer, easily in the top 1% of Badasses in the Sixth World... of course that assumes they're well-designed. 

And, addressing the OP, I think that's a reasonable amount of security; maybe throw in another guard or two just to make things more interesting if you think it's going to be dull.

[Xzylvador]

I guess my only issue is I don't see highschool students being able to last five seconds with a group of shadowrunners. Granted, I also haven't seen the players character sheets.

Careful there, these things can be deceiving.
Don't get me wrong, I'd generally agree. But let's say you're hacking into some school project and suddenly find yourself opposed to /dev/grrl, you could be in some serious trouble... and she isn't even old enough to go to high school!
Physical stuff may be less likely, but even there some could be "young potentials", some physad baseballer/wrestler/martial artist only a year away from getting a big scholarship into Harvard just for his physical skills. Not enough to blow away the team, but enough to give the sam at least a little but of combat... and if they manage to avoid fighting the sam, punch the hacker/mage KO.

[Cass100199]

Back to "how the runners get the info", these guys are, for all intents and purposes, hardened criminals. Are they going to play your plot or are these kids going to have a significant emotional event in their life as the runner's take it by force?

[lunarboy4]

Thanks for all of the input everyone! I will probably end up saying that the principal and the kids didn't want to kill him, so they are starving him.

I will end up using a spirit for the magical defense (I'm thinking a beast spirit because I like them, personally).

And, just so everyone is aware, these are not optimized characters. Actually, some friends and I thought it would be fun to do a one-shot where we made ourselves as Shadowrun characters. Seeing as we all agreed that I, out of all of us, would be the one to not be a criminal, I was chosen to GM it. As such, I decided to include myself and have them rescue me (I am the teacher). Of course, we embellished a little bit because one of the players is a mystic, and she really does not posses magical abilities (to my knowledge) and we made ourselves a little older and more experienced in our fields of choice. As such, half of the team has pacifist as a negative quality, so I'm hoping that they will stop the other two from harming children.

Also, seeing as these characters are based off of real people who are still young and in college, none of them have skills above rating 4, and they all have a lot of random skills at rating 1.

[nightslasthero]

That makes a whole lot more sense now. Yeah if you are intentionally playing lower end characters (versions of yourselves) then that works out perfectly fine.