Good Morning everyone,
on our table, the "GM token" switches after each run. This is fine for us all, but makes long campaigns really hard.
The last 2 times I was GM, I had two connected runs and would like to finalize this the next time. (Somewhere in May, probably)
When I planned these, I never thought about possible "next parts" and now I have a lot of possibilities but not a clue what to do.
Thought maybe you can help :)
The Team I play with:
[spoiler]
1. Elf, female Social Adept(Face). Kind of the leader of the group. Former news reporter.
2. Human Rigger/Decker dressing like a cowboy.
3. Ork Battlemage. Mysterious past. Refuses to use lethal force of any kind.
4. Human Melee Streetsam. Heavily tied to the Yakuza (Puyallup) and social stress.
5. Human combat decker from India. (New player. Didn't play Part 1 and 2)
[/spoiler]
Part 1:
(Original Plan: Protect a helpless programmer while two forces try to capture him simultaneously)
[spoiler]
How it turned out:
One of the Teams Fixers (an aged dwarf woman and hotel owner calling herself "The Queen") got them a simple job:
A programmer from New York needs to be secured from Monday to Friday - and he pays exceptionally well.
The programmer in question is called "Adam Murphy" and tells my group the following story: He is working for a rather big, costly and very important project. But someone stole most of the files. However, they are encrypted in a (McGuffiny) way, that only he and a few other people in the world can decrypt them. In the last few weeks there were several failed extraction attempts on him and it seemed someone from inside helped the teams. So he has to vanish for a few days, while a colleague tries to find the mole. Twice per day he has to contact his colleague, and he shouldn't be too long in one place.
My Team accepts what seems to be easy money and over the week I presented them 2 obstacles:
1. Another runner team hears rumours that some people pay an insane amount of money for a guy which might be in Seattle and start searching for him. (eventually finding my team)
2. At the second day, his colleague isn't answering the phone. And on day 3 he tells Adam that he is in Seattle and the two need to "talk". (Got kidnapped)
1. The other Runners ambushed my team and 2 of the originally 4 Members of them were immediately killed by our Rigger. My team then captured No.3 and questioned her. (Basically finding out what I wrote above)
2. My Team rescues Adams colleague in a quite daring fashion (utilizing everything they had) but never found out who kidnapped him.
After that, the two NPC's Adam and his friend, decide Seattle isn't secure enough anymore. My Team brings them back to the Fixer and she brings them (somehow) out of the city. My team got a big bag of money and is happy.
Meanwhile, the last remaining person of the other Runner Team finds my team and "negotiates" the release of the captive. (5 Grunts with shotguns) My team "accepts the terms" (of not being shot repeatedly) and lets her go.
Everyone happy. The end.[/spoiler]
Part 2:
(Original Plan: Some NPC's hold a grudge, while a bunch of crazy criminals start burning down the City trying to find my team.)
[spoiler]
How it turned out:
The other Runner team from Part 1 is a 50ish human Face called Rayner (male), and a mid 20ish human Street Samurai/Sniper called "Sunshine" (female). The second was my teams captive.
After losing half of his team, Rayner loses parts of his malfunctioning mind and starts investigating my team - eventually creating a very detailed dossier of everyone.
After a few weeks some people arrive in Seattle. They are sent here to find Adam Murphy, they know he was in Seattle but they don't know who helped him and knows where he went afterwards.
My Team doesn't know anything about this until Sunshine approaches them and asks for help. She knows Rayner went to a meeting and didn't come back. Instead she found his severed left hand in one of their secret stashes with a note to "exchange the rest of him, for the requested information".
She shows my team the dossiers and promises to destroy them if they help her to get Rayner back. After first completely freaking out, pumping her full of narcoject and tying her up in a cheap motel (which was a section, very hard for me to GMing) they eventually come to their senses and decide to help her. (Note to myself: Never give my players "Negative Motivation" again - was a bad idea)
Meanwhile, two of the hotels they stayed in Part 1 with Adam burn down in the night and the secret stash is filled with burned stones and notes like "Clock is ticking. Tick. Tick." and "We only want the decker, not to harm you!"
My team then puts a note into the stash. First a question only Rayner would know the answer to, and then time and place for an exchange. The Christmas Market ! (It was the first week of December '75 in our ingame-timeline)
My team goes into observation mode at the market while the NPC Sunshine is supposed to meet "them" and exchanging modified versions of the Dossiers for Rayner. Eventually a weird woman dressed in Pink approaches her for the exchange, but they didn't bring Rayner. Our Face dictates everything Sunshine has to say and so my team finds out that they were hired to find the decker who stole and sold project files from Ares and they believe one of his Fake Names was "Adam Murphy" who hid in Seattle until the data was sold and then just vanished. Nobody has seen him since. They know need to find out who helped him to get out of Seattle to follow his trail. (Which is why they want the Dossiers, to get to my team to get to their fixer and "beat" the information out. However, the amount of money Rayner wanted for those infos didn't meet their standards.)
After this the pink woman (calling herself Ms. Pinkie - she is obviously balls to the wall bonkers) tells them to meet at a more "quiet place", gives them another time and address and after that a liquor stand a few rows away explodes. Of course, Ms. Pinkie immediately turns around and runs away.
My team manages to follow the Van she jumped in and find the hideout of the "bad guys". And our mage is pretty sure that Rayner is also there.
What follows is a lot of planning how to get in there, and how to make sure Rayner doesn't get killed in the process. And after that a lot of action.
Eventually Sunshine AND Rayner are almost killed, but every opposition ends up dead. Except Ms. Pinkie. My team takes her captive and brings her to their Fixer "The Queen" and get a part of what Knight Errant would have given for her capture.
News say a well known criminal and arsonist was found dead in Seattle and his companion, a mentally broken down woman was captured and brought to KE by a brave, elderly dwarven Lady.
The two NPC's get to a hospital where our Face tries to find out whether Rayner learned his "lesson of the day". He did not and tells her straight forward "I would do it again! It's my Job to turn every failure into profit."
My team hires someone to get rid of him silently (he dies because of a "heart attack" a day later, still in hospital) and Sunshine leaves the city.
[/spoiler]
Part 3:
???
I feel like I owe it to my table to bring this to a conclusion. And I also had a lot of fun GMing these and after I made such a mystery out of some NPC's i believe a neat little ending would be appropriate.
For now, the players have no incentive of following any of the events on their own. While Mr. Murphy might have not told them the truth, he at least paid very well. And every other NPC is either dead, locked away or simply left the city.
These are the possibilities I considered:
1. Someone is still looking for justice/vengeance on Adam Murphy. Whoever the third party is (probably affiliated with Ares), they already hired very unstable criminals to find him. My Team might get approached by someone that offers them the job of finding Mr. Murphy. (Either Sunshine or Ms. Pinkie could have told the third party where to find my team)
This would mean they leave the city and the adventure would end in a big manhunt somewhere in the world. (How does Moscow holding up in '75?)
2. One of the players receives a text from Murphy's number, offering them a job to help him once again in city XY. Basically the same as number 1 except the team is on the other side. (might be too close to Part 1) He is asking them because he can't trust anyone in this hellhole of a city, and they seemed very competent.
3. The Queen calls again and tells my team Mr. Murphy sits at her bar. The whole thing got personal because "his partner got shot" / "the third party looking for him is an old enemy" / "he heard what happened in seattle (2 burned hotels and an exploding liquor stand)" and wants to end it once and for all - but right now cannot trust anyone.
From here I would have free reign on what to do - possibly breaking in a high security area and either killing someone, extracting someone, or steal additional data that will help his goal in some way.
4. Same beginning as Number 3 but: The data he stole has the location of some research laboratory and he wants them to get a very specific McGuffin (prototype?) out of it. Everything else they find in there can be considered loot.
5. Same beginning as Number 3 but: Adam Murphy is a really nice guy and what he stole was data about something highly illegal - some high exec is in huge drek (need an idea of what that could be) - he tried to go public with it, but it became too risky. He now wants the team to help him to find additional proof and bring him behind bars (alternatively a bullet through the head).
Where I am completely free is the question: What data did he steal? And why? And from whom? (Except that it has something to do with Ares)
And whatever I decide here will be the beginning of the next part.
This can also retcon a lot from part 1 & 2 since my team doesn't know who kidnapped his friend, doesn't know who hired the second team, doesn't know what exactly he stole and doesn't know who bought it. Only that they accepted a simple job and got caught in the crossfire afterwards.
But to exactly these questions I'd like to give them a satisfying answer, while also providing another (hopefully) fun adventure.
