[Aryeonos]

The company that one of the players own could be a potential plot hook generator and group nest egg. It'd be a good source for "Legit' jobs and open routes for networking and getting group contacts.

It looks like everyone else already pointed out anything I would've brought up but I'll highlight a few things I've run across GMing.

The world that your players live in appearance will be shaped more by your players perception than the meta and behind the scenes that you collectively know of. We all know that the corps can be mean and ebil, but to the greater public everyone (The corps and anyone else with an image to keep up) tries to convey a good image, and your players may more or less see that gloss on most occasions. So just take a queue from how your players interact with the world and how they try going about things, bad things can still exist but they might not go looking for it or come across it as often as a result.

[Tsujigiri]

1. The problem isn't just that it's ham-fisted; the motivation you explained isn't really a valid one; I expect this comes partly out of a false conception of the setting.  The fact that runners turning down a job never occurred to you reinforces this, in my mind.  But there's more to it.  See, wanting to do that suggests, to me, that you think it's your role to set the tone and impose it upon the players.  The fact, however, is that the game world is a collaborative construct made with contributions in roughly equal measure from each individual at the table (the GM may make more stuff, but the PCs have, individually, roughly the same level of impact on the kind of game it is as the sum total of the NPCs - whether you want them to or not), with the rules and setting serving as the common core to keep everything together.  Your players making that choice tells you a lot about the sort of tone they're looking for and the kind of runners they want to play; you should pay attention to this.

That's why I asked, because I already had a vague feeling that doing so would be abusing my power as GM. Thanks to you and all the others here for pointing out my lapse of judgment there. Just let me add that that I'm usually more considerate.

2: A better way into this scenario is to have someone warn the runners that the attack is coming.  That said, your difficulties here suggest, again, a setting misconception.  Did you somehow think that a Johnson could ever force the runners to take a job?  I'm rather curious as to what the source of this was - and it's a good thing we pointed the possibility out to you here, rather than you being unprepared for it when it happened in a session.  A lot of GM's I've heard from have said they keep a couple alternate jobs prepped, just in case.  Some of the modules have, as a specific point of "troubleshooting", things to do in the event the characters have objections to the job ("I don't wanna travel", and such).

And a character's background, especially something that's purely RP like this, isn't a decision you should ever be trying to make a player regret.

I did not think the Johnson could force the players to accept the job, however, it did not occur to me that the players would reject a job offer. I just simply did not see this as a possible outcome.

Also, "make them regret" was not the best choice of words. I just figured, if it's in the background of the player, it would be a shame not to use in some way. And I wanted to offer them this job just to mess with them a little bit. Now, "ideally" they would have accepted the job and then look for a way out of this situation. It was never intended to punish them or destroy part of a character's background, it was just meant to put them in a tricky situation. And of course there would be a reason for the attack, in order to give the players an angle to work on.

[Reiper]

I did not think the Johnson could force the players to accept the job, however, it did not occur to me that the players would reject a job offer. I just simply did not see this as a possible outcome.

Also, "make them regret" was not the best choice of words. I just figured, if it's in the background of the player, it would be a shame not to use in some way. And I wanted to offer them this job just to mess with them a little bit. Now, "ideally" they would have accepted the job and then look for a way out of this situation. It was never intended to punish them or destroy part of a character's background, it was just meant to put them in a tricky situation. And of course there would be a reason for the attack, in order to give the players an angle to work on.

Its ok, I had a run where I didn't think about that either, and the team walked away from it. I had to come up with another run on the fly because I wasn't prepared at all for it, and that one sucked. But I learned a lesson to always have a couple of backups one shot runs just in case.

Having some background thing where there are reprocussions for their actions (whether they are good or bad actions) is fine you just have to plan it where it makes sense. One thing I used to do with my P&P game was to print off a little newspaper that had random things on it about the city, some of it could actually be useful in the upcomming run, and I'd have a tidbit about their last run. Its how they found out they killed the wrong person on one run.

If it was just a Johnson going after the gangers (probably not in the hospital) or someone else going after them, thats one thing. Fixers do need to remain somewhat professional in order for them to continue to be able to operate, and to a lesser extent live. Now you could always do a rival gang does a driveby shooting as some of those gangers are dismissed from the hospital, killing a few innocent bystanders. Its a random act of gang violence, and the fixer wouldn't have his hands dirty.

[GiraffeShaman]

I think many of us were confused by the question because it seems obvious that the players would say no to a run where they are harming their own business, unless they are somehow duped into it. It's kind of like in a more simple example if the Johnson hires you to vandalize a Harley Scorpion that belongs to a team member. I've been surprised before with the runners saying no due to moral reasons and once because their characters were afraid of going out on open water.

Some players are helpful to GMs and will stretch their roleplay a bit in order to go along with GM adventures/plots. This is especially the case in groups where it's hard to convince anyone to GM. However, there are limits even to helpful players, and one of them is wrecking their own stuff.

I don't mean to be harsh. Your game sounds like it'd be fun to play in and your allowing a player to roleplay a business for roleplay reasons only puts you head and shoulders above many GMs.

[MarmaladeEffect]

Everyone's missing something.

If the players are at all clever, they'll say, "Sure, we'll level that place! We'll even bring you their big sign (or whatever), covered in the blood of the employees and the ashes of the building!" Then the guy who owns the business moves it to a new building and changes the name. They torch the now abandoned building, hand the fixer the sign (or whatever), and say, "Gee that was a hard fight, but we pulled it off - where's our nuyen?"

Actually, if my GM handed me a scenario like that, I'd find it pretty fun.

[Black]

Everyone's missing something.

If the players are at all clever, they'll say, "Sure, we'll level that place! We'll even bring you their big sign (or whatever), covered in the blood of the employees and the ashes of the building!" Then the guy who owns the business moves it to a new building and changes the name. They torch the now abandoned building, hand the fixer the sign (or whatever), and say, "Gee that was a hard fight, but we pulled it off - where's our nuyen?"

Actually, if my GM handed me a scenario like that, I'd find it pretty fun.

And the enemy company would never realise that the runners just screwed Mr J?  Because they would never notice the same product is still being produced, that the same employees are still working for the same guy, just their uniform and logo are different?  For the same customers, in the same market?

Still, faking a job to identify Mr J and then turning the tables on him, thats a possibility.  Providing it doesn't cost the company more than it should.  Better to suggest to Mr J that you will kill the executive team and thus get the company on the market for a reduced prices... fact the assassination and then see who comes sniffing...

[MarmaladeEffect]

I got the feeling it was a small company, not a AA corp - one soypop factory more or less isn't going to be very noticeable on the market level. Still, they could always just liquidate the company, invest the money elsewhere (like in equipment for runs), etc. The Mr.J can't be too knowledgeable, or he wouldn't have hired the owner of the company he wants destroyed in the first place.

[Black]

I got the feeling it was a small company, not a AA corp - one soypop factory more or less isn't going to be very noticeable on the market level. Still, they could always just liquidate the company, invest the money elsewhere (like in equipment for runs), etc. The Mr.J can't be too knowledgeable, or he wouldn't have hired the owner of the company he wants destroyed in the first place.

Now that is true.  But runners don't usually use here real identity and if he never met the runner... Actually if he knew, he could hire the runner to do something Hurley illegal and then blackmail him into selling he company