Is there life beyond the run?
For a game so rich in background details, I find that Shadowrun games focus very narrowly on the missions the player characters are involved in. Granted, the run is the center around which the Shadowrun plots revolve, and the whole point of the game. But runners do not function in a vacuum, there are multiple people they are likely to interact with during their downtime - neighbours, land lords, store clerks, what have you. For me as a storyteller GM, completely dismissing such interactions would be a wasted opportunity to build upon the larger storyline of the game.
To capitalize on such opportunities, I use what I call vignettes - small, self-contained, often improvised, mostly non-action encounters with ordinary, random people outside the main plot that I occasionally throw at my players. Usually, I put them there to spice up the downtimes in the game, or for a change of pace when the game starts to drag on for some reason or other. I've had several incidents where a well-executed vignette turned into the most memorable part of the game, or lead to a whole new, unexpected plot line opening up. But even if something like this does not happen, I find that the main benefit of vignettes is in giving the players the sense of place their characters have in the world, and remind them that Shadowrun is not limited to the NPCs they interact with during the run.
So what I propose here is to trade ideas for such vignettes. Have anyone ever done something like this? What worked, what didn't? Ideas to share? I'll post a few of mine below.
Granted, whether to use vignettes or not depends on the playing style. If you care about shooting people with as big a gun as possible more than you care about the story, feel free to skip the ensuing discussion - if one does indeed happen.
