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Ghost Cartels and legwork

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7desertsWanderer

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« on: <11-24-10/0050:35> »
Looking for tips on how to get people to actually do legwork other than staring at random safe houses for hours in the First Taste sub adventure of Ghost Cartels. New GM, Group is mostly unused to playing Shadowrun in anything other than a slapstick fashion.

FastJack

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« Reply #1 on: <11-24-10/0838:26> »
Maybe start the conversations yourself. Have their contacts call them about "that requested information you asked for" and RP it from there.

Doc Chaos

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« Reply #2 on: <11-24-10/1457:48> »
Yeah, for starter groups its always nice to give the characters a call. "Hey guys, heard you were digging into that whole tempo biz. Got some juuuuuicy bits for you, if you got the cash. Wanna make me an offer? Tonight, Club Flamenco on Primrose Ave., and better dress up! Cya! *click*" Allmost never fails.
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Teutonic Overlord

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« Reply #3 on: <12-08-10/0002:23> »
I made copies of the fluff from the beginning of Ghost Cartels and cut them all up.  I would then just hand them to the players at different times.  A lot of them are intercepted messages or news articles that popped into their commlinks.

It really made the players start digging trying to figure out what was going on.  Every once in a while I would also make up some stuff that wasn't even related to Ghost Cartels, print it out and give it to them in the same format...made things interesting, but very fun!
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imperialus

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« Reply #4 on: <12-18-10/1107:55> »
Yeah, for starter groups its always nice to give the characters a call. "Hey guys, heard you were digging into that whole tempo biz. Got some juuuuuicy bits for you, if you got the cash. Wanna make me an offer? Tonight, Club Flamenco on Primrose Ave., and better dress up! Cya! *click*" Allmost never fails.
Yeah...  One of my PC's had a Yak soldier contact who proved to be a very valuable source of information.  Of course, that same PC ended up killing him in a firefight when they did the "Dirty Pretty Money" adventure...  It's always fun to make your PC's kill their friends.

Archivist

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« Reply #5 on: <12-30-10/1335:09> »
For First Taste - Dae specifically gives them a lot of leads including photos, addresses and such.  You can get them pointed in the right direction quickly with a terse reminder from her. 

Their contacts and other NPCs can provide hints and directions too.  My group befriended the Lone Star officer and traded data which got them the two page Lone Star report printed in Ghost Cartels.  The technomancer bought ShadowSEA as a contact, so I use that to drip feed other news and rumors of tempo and local news with hints of things beyond GC.

Finally, flat out tell them as gamemaster.  With groups completely new to Shadowrun, you have to let them know about some of the core concepts.  Legwork is a must, keeping a low profile, don't stand in the open alleyway to fend off 10 orks even if you think being a troll with armor sounds pretty beefy...  Let the players know what their characters would know as shadowrunners in the 2070s.

PS - my group is halfway through the Hong Kong arc.  I've started posting one player's campaign journal here on the Fiction forum.  I'd be interested to hear how your guys' groups played through the same events!