I GM quite a bit. I rarely play Shadowrun as the other gamerunners in our group run D&D. So my groups worst issues is that the NPC's get weird ideas from me. The worst may be Loserman. The team, Smileys People, was contracted to snatch a object and there was competition. SP wins out but the merc in the group, Jack, got his comm hacked. He has gremlins and so he smashed it to pieces worried about what could happen but still leaving the hacker with just really one good data pic of Jack. When I told the PC that Jack thought he just got that one pic he said some throw away line like, good luck doing something with that. It stuck in my brain. What could a really good hacker do with sorta decent datafile pic of the runner looking into his comm camera, as Jack had done while trying to figure out what was happening to his comm.
This is what happened: SP crew goes to Germany on a run and comes back a few weeks after the event. They do the drop of the grab in Barvaria, (yeah, Harliquinn), and on the way back to their safehouse the crew in a taxi has a bus pull up beside the crew. Jacks face pic dominates about half the bus in a advertisement. The advertisement ad text pulls up in glowing letters of neon white/green:
"Are you a Loserman?" "Have you never been brave enough to talk to girls? Don't know how to brush your teeth? A little too friendly with your pets?" " Don't be a Loserman like this guy. With our help your better than that." Listed a big Comm-code along side of ad, that went a collection of self-help sites. Then the ad morphs into, "If you see Loserman immediately post to this site to be entered into a electronic drawing for 100,000 nuyen." "Picture entries of you with Loserman only please." Jack's picture never moves as he glares off the bus, now with a Comm-code to the game site.
The crew stare at me for about 20 seconds before they start playing this out. They get out of the cab only to find the cabbie wants to get a pic with Loserman. They let him and its off to the races as people seek out Loserman who just popped up on the big board at the game site. Think Flash mob amateur popparotzzi seek out a street merc. The rest of the crew take him into hiding but it proves somewhat problematic. Everywhere they go they eventually find a new Loserman ad, "Your mom finally caught you in her clothes, cant find anything small enough to measure yourself with, suicide prevention thinks your the exception ... comm- number. Some of his contacts act like they haven't heard of him. Jack spins like a top for awhile til they get a line that it was the hacker from a little back. They spin wheels desperately looking for a lead and hiding place.
Out in the Barrens he finds some solace til the ad zeplins start canvassing Redmond. He goes through several disguises then the hacker has a powwow via a intermediary with Jack. Hacker wants what he made on the job he beat him on and to leave Seattle. Jack puts forth his intention to kill him if he doesn't go away. The next ads have 100 nuyen for every picture of Loserman verified on our site. They go deeper undercover and Jack gets desperate. His team basically goes into hock to a Matrix contact that gives a real world local to the hacker. Jack, who is talked into one last disguise so embarrassing I cannot go into it as that guy is still my friend and is in Iraq right now, goes with two teamers to the lair of the hacker and takes revenge of the caliber variety. The crew who I play with still reference this run with shivered dread and thats one of my favorite reasons I like to game.
