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[kv]

Hey everyone,

I'm pretty active on another forum (myth-weavers), and I run a couple of 4th edition Shadowrun games on there. I just started another one, where the premise is that the characters are good(-ish) Lonestar cops in the year or so before the changeover to KnightErrant, and all the wacky stuff that happens in the meantime.

I have a few ideas for plotlines for them- one is a group of feral ghouls that have been snacking on pets across the wall from the barrens, and then a little girl goes missing.

Another is for them to do cleanup on a Stuffer Shack incident gone wrong (I haven't decided what this entails, but it should be fun as well), with running runners, dead, dying and injured gangers, and possibly injured civilians, it should be fun.

Maybe a small insect spirit, something left over from the UB stuff, hiding in the underground and getting more powerful day by day.

I'm trying to come up with more stuff- incidents that are usually beneath the notice of Shadowrunners and corporations, that Lonestar has to deal with all the time. Maybe a gunfight between two street gangs- maybe a gang firing into another gang safehouse, and dealing with that cleanup.

I suddenly thought of some incredibly creative people that I could tap for ideas, that's why I'm here. What shadowrun ideas could I put in a game for cops?

  -kv

[Jester]

oh man, I'd go with the stuffer shack idea. That one just started making me laugh. Cop wise? Not sure off hand, I'd have to think on it for a while. Maybe watch some cop shows or the news for more ideas. Since this is the awakened world you could check out the tabloids too. Maybe bat-boy escapes again and you have to stop his murderous rampage. If I can think of something else I'll let you know.

[Zone]

Remember a long time a go when I first posted a story to this board - it had to do with an ex-cop who'd gone missing during an undercover.  You can riff on any of the elements I had in there.  That story line involved a seriel killer of youths, very cop only especially if they are metas, a new drug starting to make an showing on the street: it messed with one of the five senses but you never knew which would be affected, gun runners, and security for super models.

[kv]

Ooh, all interesting things. Honestly, the game was kind of getting away from me- I posted that I wanted to do a street-level cops, not just Shadowrunners wearing cop uniforms, and I ended up with a drake mage, a dryad hacker, and an orkish serial killer who was supposed to be a medial darling.

I pulled the plug on the current crop of ideas, but I'm going to keep building on the idea (since I like it). I'll have to go read through that story again, Zone. Thanks for the tip.

 -kv

[Zone]

Do you still have that story somewhere?  Main character was M.C. Irish?  It was on the last incarnation of this board and even I don't have it anymore since I had it saved to a zip back then and they have a limited lifespan.

[kv]

No, I was disappointed when I went looking for it that it had been lost in one of the pub updates.

If you wanted to re-write it, I'm sure everyone would be grateful for the extra attention!

I know I would love to pilfer it for ideas!

Sadly, my players were douchebags, and I pulled the plug on this game. Seriously- one of them wanted to be an orkish serial killer. I might have already griped about that.

So I kept the one good player, and the guy who volunteered as my fellow DM, and we're building a few ideas so that there'll be short-term 'calls' (mini-runs), as well as plot development for the characters. I'll cross-post our crop of current ideas soon, see if you folks (the brain trust) have anything spark from what other people have said.

Yay for Shadowrun

  -kv

[kv]

Current ideas (mine first)

I mean, if you get called to the scene where a little girl has been abducted from a bedroom, you go find the little girl. But if you look between the lines, and realize that the reports of missing pets has skyrocketed, and there's a local ghoul gang, what do you do? In my mind, in this game, everyone would get together, and go do a little ass-kicking off the books. Not the SWAT team, not special forces, but good, honest, street cops.

Internal forces within Lonestar (policeman's union, secret fraternities, factions trying to gain power within the corporation, texas vs west coast, etc.), Mob ties (either to one of the characters, or a 'friend of a friend', or a setup), Internal Affairs Investigations (always a problem, especially when they execute a witch hunt trying to pin a crime on one of your characters to push attention away from a famous officer - maybe based loosely on a certain famous ork character concept), or maybe just a drug crazy that local cops have to deal with.

Eratosthenes (my fellow gamer): What if the street level cops realize those above them are trying to 'discourage' investigations, or just burying investigations. Maybe the street cops have been reporting murders to the detectives...but nothing ever gets done, and the cops are told to not talk about it? That would be a good impetus as to why the street cops might have to go outside the lines, as it were. Maybe the killer's a relative of the commish, or several of the higher ups are part of humanis, and enjoy the ork killings.

black magic/toxic spirit cult.

plain old corruption. Human trafficking that gets overlooked (lots of evil to be thwarted there), involving the mob/triads/etc. Or maybe a gang turf war, with the cops being told to work certain sides harder than others.

Maybe the cops get into a Real Bad situation (stumble upon a ghoul warren/vampire den, etc.), and are saved by some powerful NPC, who wants a favor (covering things up, finding things out, etc.), which leads them more and more into the NPC's thrall.

 
(Mine again) Play the corruption angle a little harder- a bunch of people trying to do the officers 'favors,' and then after it's been accepted, they learn who is pulling the strings? It could even work with inter-department favors, Humanis or Brotherhood of Sauron cops trying to get people to look the other direction?

Those are the starting ideas- knock anything loose?

  -kv

[Jester]

I'd start off with the girl getting kidnapped. Sounds simple for you and it gets everyone a feel for the game again and the group itself. What I thought was really cool is it looks like you could tie all the adventure ideas into one big campaign.

[kv]

Yeah, that's part of what was intriguing about the concept, for me.

Street cops do all the grunt work- they're the ones who 9 times out of 10, arrest the bad guy. They're the ones who chase him across fences and backyards as he (or she) runs, and they never get any credit. I also liked the idea of the partnerships being on different calls, and calling the other players for backup. So if you're in over your head with a ganger having a grenade launcher, you call your friends in to back you up.

I like the idea of the missing little girl, because it's something where you would call out every street cop in the area, and just search until someone found her. So it would be up to the street cops (our players) to figure it out, and rescue the little girl.

Also, rescuing the girl means the ghouls will be discovered, and that means someone needs to deal with them. That's the point at which I would like to bring in new players, so that they can help clean house and take out the rabid ghoul nest, and get the ball rolling for the full game.

 - kv

[mercy]

also rember all members of lonestar have tissue samples on file

[Zone]

Wow, it was a ghoul question for one of our stories that first brought me to this board.
I had a meta serial killing going on - all young female trolls & orks, so nobody was looking too hard at it because a) they were trolls & orks, so no one cared  b) they were slums and new immigrants, & no nobody cared, and c) all evidence pointed to other than human killers, so no one wanted to deal.