[lurkeroutthere]

So recently I've fielded some comments from some members of my play group that my campaign isn't really hooking them like it normally is. A lot of the missions I've ran have been purely one shot affairs only having ties to further missions when their actions called for it. I've put in a few hints of long term plots but mostly kept it to. "You did good work, we may contact you in the future when we are ready to move forward or need assistance here again."

At this point my players need to stay out, i'm going to spoiler the text below so it takes active snooping to look. You only hurt yourselves and all that.



So I've decided for the teams next outing I'm going to do a metaplot run. Not just any meta-run but tying back into a metaplot that I had for several years through several successive campaigns and some of the players in the group, now under different characters may recognize. The overall goal of the metaplot isn't important here but suffice to say it involve the potential return of Dues or Mirage and heavily involves resonant and dissonant technomancers, which works well as I have two technomancers in my current group.

But anyway before I get too far ahead of myself I decided one of the best way to signify the greater weight of the upcomign run would to have it be quite a bit more complicated then the regular run.

So here's the basic genus of the idea.

An original Matrix Systems Portal (basically the first commercially built cyberdeck) is going on display at the New York Museum of Science and Technology. I have a couple different thoughts on where this would be. One thought is to put is as part of the Grand Central Arcology owned/administered by Prometheus Engineering. I'm a smidge concerned that having museum security with a arcology on top of it and then manhattan island surrounding that might make the run a bit too hard, but I think my group could accomplish it. The other option would be to put it at the Intrepid Museum.

In any case the real reason i came here was to get some ideas for complications on the run. I have this idea of a timeline, as certain datepoints on the timeline are passed certain things are passed. The first complication I have in mind is unless the runners accomplish the run very very quickly their original Johnson will probably be killed while their at large. The reason for this is someone found out that their J (basically a indipendant J who specializes in jobs recovering high value objects) actually accepted two commisions on this job and one of them got wind of his betrayal and offed him. Also in the works is the museum's insurer dispatches a team to recover the object using a combination of data sifting and pin point strikes. Finally I was thinking the actual object comes out of the Samantha Villers collection and she sends her own team to recover it "off the books" this will be on top of the parties that are trying to recover the artifact because of it's "religious" significance.

I'm probably going to have the cyberdeck itself act as a kind of mobile resonance well or other technomancer artifact.
Thoughts?

[foolofsound]

That sounds like a pretty cool idea for a run (or short series of runs), but doesn't seem to solve the problem that I think your players are having. In my experience, a well structured campaign has a single overarching plot that becomes more and more evident (and important) as the storyline continues (for example, in my campaign, 'The Evo Conspiracy'). Within the main plot, you have a series of recurring themes (my campaigns: Halloweener Activity, Toxic Shamans, Disappearances, Mass Produced Shadowrunners, Gang War Outbreak, Elven Agents, Vanguard Spirits, Secret Evo Projects) that ties in with the main plot, with regular shadowrunning breaks in-between, as appropriate. As the players progress, they slowly learn that each of the 'themes' ties together in some way, eventually revealing the main plot as the campaign comes to a climax.

That isn't to say that you can't start up a new plot once the first resolves, but I tend to find that, at least the way I play, once the plot has climaxed and the players play through the aftermath, it's time to start new campaign.

It seems to me that your players feel more like they are in a serial episodic series than a movie; something that I find to be much less engaging.

This is definitely a pretty good start to a major plot though, so good luck.

[Decade Rider]

Some serial develop in better then movie plot alot of the time

Story start up, Adventure and Satyr Happens

Then Bam Plot twitst and it start getting in an awesome finale!

[foolofsound]

Some serial develop in better then movie plot alot of the time

Story start up, Adventure and Satyr Happens

Then Bam Plot twitst and it start getting in an awesome finale!

Serial was the wrong word, sorry. What I meant was Episodic.

[Orvich]

Monster of the week does sometimes become ho-hum, no matter how exciting said monster is.

[GiraffeShaman]

The best tv shows also have large ongoing plot arcs, in addition to the episode arc. The Wire was the best at it that I've ever seen. Actually, it kind of ruined TV for me, since I now can't stand the usual shows with single episide plots only.

Some players are happy just raising their character attributes, etc. Others are more demanding. Introducing some ongoing villians, and npcs the players like for these villians to target, might spice things up.

Sounds like a good time to use the Villers Black Magic group or the 2070's equivalent.

[WSN0W]

Burn Notice is a good example of it too. There is the double plot in pretty much every episode. The Side Story which is the 'Random job/bad guy of the week/how we make money' task that allows for the occasional returning character or reference which is complicated as Michael and Co are working on the 'next phase' of the season's Metaplot arc and trying to pull off two runs at once.

[lurkeroutthere]

Well i'm taking it with the grain of salt that the person tendering the complaint is also the one who spends the most time doing stuff on her laptop, to the point where she sometimes has to be filled in on what's going on so there may be a bit of bring the horse to water thing.

Some of the problems is my players don't generally pry into things unless it blatantly becomes necissary. At the same time though I normally don't like making it blatantly necissary. The gameworld as a whole isn't about the PC's unless they takes some steps to make it that way kind of deal.

[foolofsound]

Well i'm taking it with the grain of salt that the person tendering the complaint is also the one who spends the most time doing stuff on her laptop, to the point where she sometimes has to be filled in on what's going on so there may be a bit of bring the horse to water thing.

Might also consider that the reason she isn't paying attention to the game is because she isn't feeling engaged; not necessarily that she isn't engaged because she isn't paying attention. That fact that she raised the concern tells me that she wants to be engaged, but isn't.

Some of the problems is my players don't generally pry into things unless it blatantly becomes necissary. At the same time though I normally don't like making it blatantly necissary. The gameworld as a whole isn't about the PC's unless they takes some steps to make it that way kind of deal.

Maybe some groups like to play like that, but I feel the GM's role isn't to create a sandbox for the PCs to roll around in, but to create a story to engage them. How long can a sandbox last before it gets boring, honestly? Take a look at any good sandbox game. They have stories (sometimes even multiple stories) to engage you when you grow bored with exploring the world (which will happen, no matter how big or well-crafted the world). I feel that P&P games allow for multi-person storytelling; that's their strength. If I wanted to screw around in a setting, I would play Skyrim.

[lurkeroutthere]

While it is a fair concern you would be incorrect. I'm not going to go into the reasons why your wrong because it would be rather personal on the parties involved (that being the group involved) and it would be dragging things further off topic.

Minecraft is doing alright by most accounts and it is pretty much purely a sandbox game. My point is that  I am happy to work with players if they want to pursue goals or build epic stories. Ultimately the game world is about events that would have continued on without their involvement and how they affect those events.  Essentially that means the story is there for them to either get involved in or weave their own threads. I'm not going to randomly nominate a player at the table "the chosen one" just to get them involved.

[foolofsound]

The point of the epic stories in a setting is to get the players involved in those stories. You seem to think that the game world is some sovereign entity. The game world does not exist without players interacting with it, the point of the GM is to create a situation in which the players can have an impact on the setting. Nothing feels better than seeing your efforts come to fruition, even in a game. If that reward is never anything more than karma, nuyen, maybe a contact or a piece of equipment, eventually your players are going to become desensitized that sort of reward. My point is, a setting that never advances grows stale.

As to Minecraft, in my experience, people play it, then they get bored of it. They may return to it later, they may not. Even new content and projects become stale after a while.

I do have to ask though, if you don't feel that this player (or players) concerns are legitimate (which is what you seem to be saying), why did you ask for advice in the first place? And if you do believe the concern is valid, why would you turn down the advice given (by several people) out-of-hand? Do you want us to give you criticism/praise for your adventure? Like I said, I like it (quite a bit actually), but don't feel that it addresses the problem stated in your initial post, unless you decide to make it into a longer term plot (one that the players become embroiled in, in some way).

[lurkeroutthere]

Yes actually i was more interested in thought/complications for the actual adventure. As this spirals into a discussioon of GMing style it gets further and further off topic.

[GiraffeShaman]

If they offed the Johnson, they might attempt to use an imposter of the Johnson with a physical mask, disguise, etc. to try to collect the item. They'd have the PC contact info from the Johnson's address book.

[Ympulse]

Getting things back on the topic of the OP;

Spoiler'd for reasons brought up by the OP.

Your specific run mentioned could involve multiple parties surrounding the event. For instance, if the PCs take their time and Do It Right, they're going to run into 3-4 different complications based on where their legwork leads them. From Triad "reclamations" to another 'runner team working for an eclectic Johnson. If your Technos get really involved in the legwork, there would also be different Resonant/Dissonant parties after that Deck for a very specific reason. (Maybe there's a dormant Jormungand egg in there?)

Also, if the run's prep goes into months of game-time, you should implement the concept that "if you don't, someone will" when it comes to what the PCs are hired for. If they drag their feet to do a snatch run, well someone better might come along and get it done before them. My group in particular has had this happen to them before, and they were'nt too pleased about it. I explained to them that they're in a living world where there are other actors on the stage, and since then they've become MUCH better at time efficiency