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Author Topic: Run ideas?--help....  (Read 3441 times)

Gilliam

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Run ideas?--help....
« on: October 11, 2006, 07:48:42 PM »

okay, I'm running an IRL tabletop game with only two players.  I haven't really run anything for a group of 'runners this small before.  I'm looking for some bare-bones plot ideas, something interesting, challenging, but not something so big that Mr. Johnson should really be hiring another team (I don't like to bring NPC's along for the ride).

I'm having trouble thinking of decent combats for two characters.

for the record, I'm using 4th edition

my players are: Shifty, the Combat Hacker.  (2 init passes, with a drone), Running wolf, (once a few spells are cast, he's the amazing invisible super wolf) also a generally capable mage.

one player is relatively new to the game, although he's almost done teething (shifty).  The other player is experienced and imaginitive.

Please, help, I'm a capable GM once I get the core of a good plot down, but I'm really having trouble getting appropriate scale missions for a team this small (my usual group is 6-8 players, but everyone's off at school).
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kv

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Re:Run ideas?--help....
« Reply #1 on: October 11, 2006, 10:37:06 PM »

I would suggest 'tech goodness gone wrong,' which is a fairly simple plotline.

Mr. Johnson needs some information- specs on a top secret project. He's basically doing background for another (bigger) run, and needs someone to get the particulars of the information for him.

So he hires two runners- newbies, and gives them the "easy" job of walking in, stealing the blueprints, schematics, or information (or whatever- just something for the tech guy to have to stretch his legs). Something that requires physical intrusion, and then on the way out, something goes wrong. A security guard coming back from his break walks right into the runners. The techs they're impersonating come in to fix a different air duct... anything.

So suddenly they have someone breathing down thier necks.

Of course, a hacker/mage combo isn't the easiest to write for. Maybe a spirit to follow/fight the two of them? That way Mr. Bad Assed Wolf will be invisible to the naked eye, but glowing like a "GirlsGirlsGirls" on the astral.

  -kv
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ROOTless

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Re:Run ideas?--help....
« Reply #2 on: October 12, 2006, 01:48:45 AM »

First of all, mr. J could be just plain too stingy to hire 5 runners, when 2 could do, especially if they have enough of a rep that he thinks they might be able to pull it off, but not enough to just name their own fees.

As for the plotline and general playstyle, I'd probably go with stealth/social.
If you want into a building, you dont have to blow a big hole in one side and wlk in, usually there are already openings, so you can just sneak or scam your way in. Either are usually easier with small groups. Leave the drone outside, it can presumably be remote controlled, and as such is simply on call.

Tone down combat, from the characters they've made, I'd hazard that's not really what you players want to do all day anyway, and you can easily arange fights for them if you need/want to. Simply arrange them in situations where they can tailor things to their benefit (darkness/plenty of cover/whateverhaveyou). Remeber that most sec guards are rather poorly trained compared to your average runner, and thus are very vulnerable to penalties.
And they don't have to go up against leopard guards everytime.

Also, since they have a magician, you might want to tailor things a bit to that, by including sec.mages (or specifically choosing not to, to make things easier on the runners), or spirits, like K_V suggested.
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Gabriel

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Re:Run ideas?--help....
« Reply #3 on: October 12, 2006, 06:46:56 AM »

I wrote a few runs for a 2-player group a while back, but one was a shaman and the other a general sammie/survielance/light combat guy. I'm not sure how appropriate they would be for your, but I would be happy to see if I could dig them out and send them along to you.

The first is a theft from a upper middle class medical clinic. The runners are going in to steel medical supplies for a local street doc. They have disguises, timetables, and the like. And since this is a 24 hour clinic that sees very little business at night, security is light. Unfortunately, a pack of ghouls attack the clinic shortly after the runners start thier busniess. The ghoul leeder thinks they can help cure him, but of course is just deluding himself. Throw in a bit of a plot twist at the end, and it was a fairly successful run that got them an ongoing villian.

The second run is a simple one where the runners are blackmailed by the mob (see first scenario) to go steel some files from the house of a triad mage. The runners aslo have to leave a "package" in the oven when they leave. This one wasn't really very intense, but served as a plot-device for an ongoing mafia sub-plot. With some tweaking, it might work for a bit more high-risk 2-player run.

Just let me know if you want the paydata, Gilliam.

Gabriel
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Gilliam

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Re:Run ideas?--help....
« Reply #4 on: October 12, 2006, 11:48:26 AM »

thanks guys, these all seem like good ideas.  I tend not to concentrate too much on combat, usually trying to have most of my runs over with only 1 long drawn-out dice-rolling sessions.  I enjoy talking it out a little bit more (although sometimes its just one of those gun-toting days).

Gabriel: the characters you are describing sound very similar to the ones I'm trying to write for.  The ghoul thing sounds good, I had them save a squatter colony from a small group of them last week, but they missed encountering their leader (he was out setting a new trap).  The NPC I'm using has embraced his new identity, and wants to convert the world.  I should probably mention that he's also a twisted adept.

thanks for the plotlines.  I tend to be fine once I have something believable, that can just take weeks for me to get to.

any other ideas would be welcome.
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Gabriel

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Re:Run ideas?--help....
« Reply #5 on: October 12, 2006, 12:52:56 PM »

I had an idea a shile back for a new group that never really got off of the ground. Have your guys get contacted by a Johnson who wants them to go after some slag in a corporate compound. Now, the corporate cobber commited some sort of crime (and not a REALLY major one or there would be extradition procedings) while he was out and about in Seattle one day. Well, the cops trace the crime back to him, but he's back at the compound and thus on soverign corporate soil. The cops who were investigating slotted off the corporate liason who promptly shut the extradition down. Since it is nothing like serial killing or bombing public places, the cops don't really have the leverage to force the issue so the runners are hired to get the guy out of the compound.

The runners don't have to capture the guy or even kill or extract him, they just have to get him out of the compound and onto UCAS soil, the Star will do the rest. Complications could be actually getting the guy to go along with stepping out, the Star arresting the runners too, the guy leaving for Japan/Amazonia/[insert distant and permanent destination here] etc.

Gabriel
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kv

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Re:Run ideas?--help....
« Reply #6 on: October 12, 2006, 02:49:56 PM »

That's actually a pretty cool idea- I might do that myself.

  -kv
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Gabriel

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Re:Run ideas?--help....
« Reply #7 on: October 13, 2006, 06:43:57 AM »

Yeah, but you'd have to scale it up a bit.

Gabriel
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kv

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Re:Run ideas?--help....
« Reply #8 on: October 13, 2006, 08:23:35 AM »

Yeah, but a run as odd as that wouldn't be hard to scale up- have it be several people, rather than just the one- and have them coming out of the corp territory to rape, loot, burn, and beat people up, and then go and hide on corp property until they get moved.

So it needs to happen fast, and all of the people doing it need to be brought in.

I was wondering where you were going with the 'Lonestar arrests the runners too' angle- just being dirty cops? Not wanting to pay out?

  -kv
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"There are three rules to surviving a gun fight.
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3) Shoot last
   If you can do that, you can survive."
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                                (Mercury's Father)

Gabriel

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Re:Run ideas?--help....
« Reply #9 on: October 13, 2006, 10:03:19 AM »

Well, runners ARE criminals you know. So bringing in the rapist AND a gang of SINless runners would look really nice to the cop's seargeant. But I still think you need it to be only one guy. If not, it would get too much media coverage for the corp to just ignore it. The one-guy angle makes it a bounty hunt. And no't you have a bounty hunter in your group????????

Gabriel
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kv

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Re:Run ideas?--help....
« Reply #10 on: October 13, 2006, 05:21:27 PM »

I haven't played Shadowrun in a while, so technically, aside from participation here on the board, and a few other instances, I haven't played in a couple months.

We'll see if we can't clear that up before Christmastime, but I have my doubts. With Ruski having new additions to the family, and my other brother not wanting to drive to and from Arizona two or three times a month, it looks like my family game is on indefinite hiatus.

I was picturing, though, one old Lonestar officer- maybe one of the first. He has all these old casefiles in his locker- 'unsolved' cases, because a certain corp refused to extradite employees. So he now has a list of three employees- one is a new hellraiser, who likes to come out, start a fight or riot, and then run back to employee parking. But with a couple of old cases, you're pretty much promising that they'll have to change buildings, or at least floors to get the people they need.

I wouldn't go more than five, and I'd probably keep it around two or three- just to keep things as simple as possible.

  -kv
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"There are three rules to surviving a gun fight.
1) Shoot First
2) Shoot More
3) Shoot last
   If you can do that, you can survive."
                                 -Samus Bravo
                                (Mercury's Father)

Gilliam

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Re:Run ideas?--help....
« Reply #11 on: October 13, 2006, 07:29:37 PM »

that sounds like a good finale-level run.  My guys are going to have to work up to that kind of thing.  My hacker's player isn't really used to the kinds of strings that can be pulled in the sixth world, and the mage isn't nearly strong enought to try to take on a whole compound yet...

but I'll file that one away in the idea part of my brain, that is, if you don't mind, gabriel.
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Gabriel

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Re:Run ideas?--help....
« Reply #12 on: October 20, 2006, 12:50:31 PM »

Hey chummer, all ideas are free around here. Don't you know how Shaodwland works??? ;)

Gabriel
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kv

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Re:Run ideas?--help....
« Reply #13 on: October 20, 2006, 04:33:48 PM »

I thought on Shadowland you had to upload as much as you download?

That's why I come here- talk is cheap, but it's usually pretty good. ;D

  -kv
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"There are three rules to surviving a gun fight.
1) Shoot First
2) Shoot More
3) Shoot last
   If you can do that, you can survive."
                                 -Samus Bravo
                                (Mercury's Father)

Gilliam

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Re:Run ideas?--help....
« Reply #14 on: October 20, 2006, 04:59:42 PM »

Exactly what I've been looking around for.
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