[Solodice]

So I recently got my gaming group into Shadowrun and I've been running a nice little starter adventure for them. Now I can say I'm not super on top of the rules but I'm working my way up to knowing them very well. I'll probably have some questions along the way.

Now for a run down on the said adventure: It involves the runners going out and grabbing some corporate wage slave, Finch, and bringing him back to the Johnson for some nuyen. The runners get the wage slave's address but the Face's contact gives the team some bad news. Seems Finch's place has been broken into and he hasn't seen Finch for the past day. The team heads out to Finch's place. They find that his apartment was smashed into and it seems there was a scuffle of shorts due to some blood. During there little investigation a local ganger patrol roles by the place. The troll of the group figures out that there a local motorcycle gang called The Watchers. They decide to tail the local patrol and not very good either. Two bikers break off from the main group and head down an ally and the runners just ignore them. A bit later they figure out the local ganger HQ is at a bar about a mile or two from Finch's place. The runners decide to check it out.

They pull up to the local Stuffer shack next the bar and mingle around the place. The teams hacker wastes no time hacking into the Stuffer Shacks cameras and takes a look through their logs. As the hacker is going through the logs there dwarf wep. spec. heads across the street to set up in a sniper position on the roof of one of the buildings. The patrol from earlier shows up but ignore the runners. The hacker finally after going through the logs finds a clip of someone being unloaded from a car and into the bar by a armored door in the ally by the Stuffer Shack. The runners then decide to send the Face and his bodyguard (Troll) into the bar. This is where the bikers jump them. The Face takes a stun baton to the nether region while the Troll shrugs them off. The Faces bodyguard then grabs the Face and dives behind the bar and kills the bartender under his weight.

Outside the ex-hitman engages some gangers outside after failing to sabotage there bikes with some smoothy. The wep. spec. pops one in the head and the ex-hitman plays it off like he blew up the ganger with his mind. The gangers then bolt down the street in fear of this. All the while the two bikers that broke off from the patrol earlier behind the teams van with guns drawn. Some gangers from earlier that went into the Stuffer Shack come out with weapons drawn same with the Stuffer Shack manager. They fire into the van but after bashing one with the door and running over another the smuggler and hacker race down the street to help out the Face and his bodyguard. The bodyguard has already dispatched some gangers but when the van rolls around the hacker with some impressive skill riddled the bar with bullets from the vans LMG. They then find Finch in the back room of the bar. They then take a drive back to the Johnson's designated drop off. They get some info out of Finch and find out he's a lowly school janitor and not a corporate wage slave. The runners dismiss this for a moment.

The moment they believe Finch is when they get ambushed by some bounty hunters. They blow out the vans wheels and cover the van with smoke. While all there attention is to the front of the van. Leroy, the lead bounty hunter, opens the back of the van and hopes on with his Remington 990. He asks nicely for Finch and he gets him without a fight. He then goes on to tell the runners about the man they're working for, G Dee P. It turns out he's in bed with an organlegger and is falsifying records of people to make them look like corporate employees. He then sends out runners to get them and he then kills them and then sends them off to the organlegger. The bounty hunter was put on the case of multiple kidnappings going on for the past month by the police force of Seattle. He then tells the runners he'll give them a share off his cut for a captured G Dee P. The runners take him up on his deal and plan on how to get G Dee P. They'll go off to the drop off with Finch, Leroy tells them not to get a scratch on him, and see if they can get G Dee P's money and Leroy's.

They get to the drop off a little later after the van is fixed up. It turns into a royal blood bath and ends with the death off 4 of G Dee P's guys and the destruction off his money as well, they blew it up with a grenade with G Dee P's guys. This also led to the death of the Face's bodyguard.

Right now they got a quick replacement runner from the ex-hitman's fixer, an Ork ganger. They then broke into a boat shop and steal a boat to get to G Dee P's place that's a house that sits out on the water around Seattle. 

Now some things I want to hear from you guys:

I'm trying to figure out how to involve the teams hacker more often but I'm having trouble doing that. Any tips?

Now with four of G Dee P's guys being dead and not returning back to his place for the past 3 hours wouldn't it make sense he ditches the place? I think so but what about the players of the mission? They didn't get G Dee P's money because they accidently destroyed it. Now the only way to get money would be from Leroy that wants G Dee P alive. Should he pack up shop and then I let the runners track him down? Or should G Dee P set up a trap for the runners?

[GiraffeShaman]

One way to involve hackers more is in the legwork portion of runs. You can make certain information only available on the Matrix. In this manner, half the time the party Face gets the bulk of the spotlight during legwork portions of runs and the other half the hacker gets the main focus.

This is only a start though. The difficulty of incorporating hackers/deckers into the gameplay is a constant challenge that has led many GMs to make hackers npc only. You can have them be actively shutting down security systems during firefights and such, but it gets pretty complex, especially once you add in the astral side of things at the same time. It's a unique part of Shadowrun, but it's difficult to juggle and not leg the action get bogged down.

[Xzylvador]

What G Dee P does all depends on what you want him to do, or more important, want him to become.

If you want him to be a recurring villain, he should be smart enough have an escape plan ready and saved some cash. He should be long gone.
If this was G Dee P's entire operation though, or he spent most of his previously ill-gotten-gains on pimping out his crib and wasting it on hookers & drugs/BTL or something, have him be arrogant enough to make a stand in a "You think you're bigger than me? You think you can take me?! I'm G Dee P man, I killed dozens of guys just like you before!" and have them kill him.
The second option will probably give the players a more rewarding feeling and imo fits better. His operation sounds a little bit too small-scale for the antagonist to suddenly become a mastermind.

Do NOT be afraid of not having them have the money and having them "find" another pile just identical to the one they lost. They blew it up. They just learned a very important lesson to professional shadowrunning: Avoid collateral damage if possible, best case it'll just cost you money, worst case it'll cost you your career or your life. Seems a very good lesson for a starting group. This isn't DnD where you'll always magically find treasures after each fight.

But, if you want them to have some money to spend on new gear, monthly rent and medical bills, you can perfectly combine it with getting the hacker more involved:
If GDP's been falsifying records of people to make them seem like corporate employees, it must mean he -or (a) hacker(s) working for him- has backdoors into a lot of very important databases with law enforcement, medical, political and corporate data. There's an entire black market just for false ID's, those things are BIG business. Heck, GDP could have probably made more money with less risk just manufacturing and selling ID's. If the hacker can get his hands on the accounts and passwords for those backdoors, your players will have paydata potentially worth a lot more than what they were initially offered by GDP.
Or, if you want to make this a bridge to a second "mission", have the hacker not find the paydata, but the location and identity of the hacker(s). Next mission: grab those hackers, get their info and sell that paydata!
Oh, and throw in some nice bots or security system the hacker can shut down at GDP's "base".

[Solodice]

You guys are the best! I'm loving your idea Xyz about him being a little cocky and wants to stand up to the runners (it does help that he has a cybered out elf as a bodyguard).

As for the hacker thing: The one that my players know of is the one at GDP's place but that doesn't mean this hacker acted alone...