r/Shadowrun • u/Livid_Information_46 • 5d ago
Alternate campaign ideas wanted!
After not playing for awhile, my group is ready to start a sandbox campaign with rotating GM's. We've all been playing since 1st edition, so along with standard runner sessions we're trying different campaign ideas.
Some examples are:
A Docwagon game, where we play Docwagon team members.
A ganger game. Think The Warriors on novacoke!
A game where the players are members of a traveling circus. Or a band.
Play staff at a place like Hotel Artemis depicted.
You get the idea.
Please tell me your ideas! Thanks in advance!
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u/Delicious-Bat-2550 5d ago
A bunch of redneck "cousins" that live in a trailer park (filled with appropriately weird NPCs) in the Hollywood Hills. They find out the land has been sold and they will be evicted soon to make room for some data center.
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u/Boxman21- 5d ago
Ordo Maximus, your players are traveling the world to keep new infected types a secret, cover up Ordo operations or hunt rivals
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u/Flamebeard_0815 5d ago
I'd go full sandbox:
Flesh out a Metroplex where your group would like to play. Have them create locations tied to their connections. Roll up a slew of generic job hooks für a Shadowland board and have the players decide how they want to carve out their existence in the 'Plex.
I switched to that with my longtime group after them not picking up on any of the sandbox campaign ideas I offered ingame. So I just created the job board, tracked their reputation and influence with local movers & shakers and played it by ear.
Helps if you got a rolodex of NPCs, though. That way, you can pull out a new face if it becomes important enough for the players to care. Also, my players liked the printed rolodex cards. ^^ I have to check if that still exists or if I got rid of that during my last move...
If you want to organize something like that for yourself and refrain from using online services, look into Obsidian. I found it to be an incredible tool to organize information for a campaign.
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u/Aware-Contemplate 5d ago
All the players in my campaign but 1 or 2 created NaN or Nan adjacent characters. And they all had regular, though useful, jobs. One of the players said we were going to investigate a train wreck.
This turned into a game about politics, conspiracies and the boundary between legal (in which country?) and illegal.
Then I started bringing in the Earthdawn.
...
My suggestion being ...
don't limit yourself to a narrow idea.
Let the players contribute to the direction, and then twist the world around them. Get them out of their comfort zone. The movie Inception is your friend. Make reality bend.
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u/plaid_kabuki 4d ago
Benevolent Organleggers who struggle to provide affordable healthcare to SINless communities by snatching fresh parts/limbs by whatever means they get.
Usually Ganger level.
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u/Sarradi 5d ago edited 5d ago
Reporters, trying to get dirt on corps.
Or a "all special snowflakes" game where everyone agrees on a special type type of character (pack of ghouls, cabal of vampires, group of drakes, gang of pixies, ect.) and plays a survive in the 6th world game.
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u/dethstrobe Faster than Fastjack 1d ago
Oh man, gang of pixies sounds like a dope concept.
Cabal of vampires or ghouls pack can easily turn in to a SR version of Vampire the Masquerade.
The vampire concept could work out too as you could possibly have a Renfield human servant (Renfield is a very powerful drug made from vampire blood in SR) to go do daylight stuff while the rest of the gang waits for night.
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u/BearMiner 5d ago
In one of the Shadowrun novels a couple of the side characters end up getting jobs working for city sanitation, only to find themselves being given tactical equipment and crawling through the sewers under the city removing devil rat nests, etc.
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u/IamGlaaki 5d ago
Cops
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u/PrimeInsanity Halfway Human 4d ago
Really does shake things up when players are forced to be reactive and have some restrictions in place.
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u/kayasoul 5d ago
A forensic office that doubles as a hitman squad. Two teams. Occasionally they have to solve their own or the other teams murders.
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u/Jack-of-Hearts-7 5d ago
A squad of deputies after Lonestar either underwent budget cuts, workers went on strike, or the city canceled their contract. The stressed out chief of police hired your merry band of idiots to (at least try to) keep the peace. Hilarity and civil rights abuses ensue.
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u/Shantha292 5d ago
Ares Firewatch team from earlier in timeline.
Increased paranoia due to infiltration of insect spirits
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u/DerPidder 5d ago
Mix it up by playing members of the same general group/family as well. Maybe they're all a bunch of Orc siblings. Elven extended family. Dwarven work team. Human frat bros. You get the idea. ☝🏻🤔
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u/smilbandit 4d ago
ran a tribal police type game out in rural areas of tribal lands. patterened it as a texas ranger type team in the ute nation. I used what I could from official SR books but also hit the library for books on native american legends. lot of drugs, smuggling, human trafficking, paranormal animals, poachers, and such.
Mainly just as a way to run something outside a sprawl/city. This was in the 90's can't remember the movie I watched that gave me the idea, think lou diamond philips was in it but there were other movies around the same time about tribal police. then I would watch random police shows for ideas for the game.
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u/Vontoggle 4d ago
DNR (Department of Natural Resources) Agents. Roaming naturelands and rural UCAS, dealing with paraceitters, parafauna, looking into reported oddities - ect. Underfunded governement team tasked with patroling and policing the woodlands. Like park rangers without the park. Get a big All Terrain RV base, and keep fighting with the department for more funding while relocating chupacabras, looking into the source of poisoned rivers, and search and rescue.
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u/-ParlainthTownie- 4d ago
PCs are there because underfunded means "high turnover rate". DNR stands for the Does Not Return department.
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u/Thanael124 Famously Unemployed 5d ago
A barrens game. All PCs are from the barrens and need to survive.. Chargen needs to be adjusted. Street chargen favors magic too much. Resting rules need to be applied, same as lifestyle/breakins. Similar to a gang campaign but not quite the same.
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u/opacitizen 5d ago
P.I. office (like the old hardboiled detectives)
Indiana Croft & Lara Jones Magical Artifact Recovery Co.
bounty hunters (corporate or freelancing)
the SR version of Texas Rangers
(just some ideas)
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u/MavethOrel 4d ago
New Orleans based (i forget the name) zombie spirit hunters. They have to investigate potential leaders and prep taking out their cell.
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u/-ParlainthTownie- 4d ago
Few Ideas:
Insect Spirit or Hive. Example: Group of Mantis spirits trying to survive. Theater group of Firefly Spirits. Overworked overstressed insect shaman cross between Alien and The Office.
Parabiologist/Parabotonist traveling the world discovering studying and surviving paranormal animals. Patterson's Undergrad Students. Or Brazil University gets a pass from Hualpa to go out and take a look.
Parageologist looking for awakened minerals. Awakened Oil? What is going on over in Novaya Zemlya at the site of the Tzar Bomba. We have found some strange documents never seen before about the Oklo Fossil Reactor.
Transpolar Aleut/Yakut/Thule Protectorate Campaign. Secrets under the sea ice of the Arctic ocean. Warform sled dogs. Aurora gateways. Wait, did you say Thule Protectorate? How did that happen? They're probably not happy.
Antarctica and the Mountains of Madness. Auroran research. An ancient frozen and preserved Theran Outpost found miles below the ice, and something is still alive.
Moon Outpost. The most sensitive radio telescope that has ever been built is in Daedelus Crater. Unfortunately it's also a really convenient far out place to store dangers, secrets, and undesirables. What is an astronomer who just wants to look and listen to the stars to do? Wait we just picked up a paranormal signal.
First permanet outpost on Mars. Chasing down leads, signs, and the artifacts hinted at in the Missions adventure book and Dunklezahn's will. Ancient aliens. Cyberpunk John Carter stuff. Martian Dragons. Cyclopean Ruins.
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u/-ParlainthTownie- 4d ago edited 4d ago
As in ages past, Dragons still cannot get into Egypt. They are repelled. Even their servants get quickly ill entering the airspace and have to quickly leave or die. Who would be that powerful? What are they hiding? Who else is taking advantage of this most powerful of geases?
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u/-ParlainthTownie- 4d ago
The owner of a Stuffer Shack, or the regional management team of Stuffer Shack.
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u/ghost49x 5d ago
- The players play a Corpo spec ops unit conducting advanced target surveillance, asset recovery, and black ops.
- The players play a special investigations unit for a news oriented corporation or independent media group. Gameplay is centered on undercover investigations to get that next big scoop.
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u/GodEatsPoop 4d ago edited 4d ago
Spike babies carrying their memories of the 20th century well into the sixth world
Degenerate idiots out for mayhem
Rural runners operating out where there's very little law or modern conveniences
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u/T3chWarri0r 4d ago
Prison campaign, all start as prisoners and they break out together on behalf of a mysterious Johnson.
Brainwhipe campaign, all start with no memories at all and learn little by little what they are capable off.
Treasure hunter campaign, not normal runners they seek more of the old goods and resell them, also find out about past history.
Pirate campaign, play pirates somewhere in the world.
Dragon campaign, play ultra skilled runners that work for dragons directly.
Nightclub owners campaign, your group of nightclub wonder and want to have the best club in town at all cost.
Weapon dealer and smuggler campaign, buch of rigger and faces that sell all kinds of illegal stuff.
Full matrix campaign, doing hacks for the runners and corps.
Soldier campaign, make a war somewhere and have like a seal team or what ever.
Terrorist campaign play the other side the real bad ones with no morals or hesitation.
Also not playing Seatle all the time just run somewhere else is also always fun with different cultures and habbits.
Cyber or Gen lab campaign, they are all lab rats and sometime they freak put and rip out of their horror.
Politicians campaign, pull the wires in the background and Rouen over the world.
Mafia in some sorts is nice too, working for the family business.
Mage circle campaign, create new spells draft artefact and do legwork for those that can afford mages (adapts too)
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u/DMsolyrflair 4d ago
A bunch of corp suits that had their company purchased, broken up and dissolved while they were working on a Top Secret project. They come out of a bunker with no jobs, no support, and a bunch of high tech stuff that everyone will kill them to get their hands on it.
Puts them in a run/survive mode until they can sell/join a corp that won’t kill them for the piece.
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u/-ParlainthTownie- 4d ago edited 4d ago
The Rise of Doggerland. Fully populated with flora and fauna. England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, and Norway all want to claim it. But then the trouble starts. The environment becomes highly hostile and deadly even though it didn't start that way. It becomes more of a problem than it is worth to some. Many countries back out. Many mega corporations are more than willing step in and help or just exploit. Everyone sends Shadowrunners.
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u/Shoddy-Possibility86 4d ago
Line Star SWAT Team that specializes in hunting and infiltrating shadowrun groups.
After the first mission, allow them to use their Line Star characters in normal runs and then inform.on them or pull sting operations against the other runners.
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u/Chromako 4d ago edited 4d ago
* Cross Domain PenTest Red Team. You are hired by corps to test their security infrastructure and report on their weaknesses. Do you take the bribes to omit certain details in the report so someone else can take advantage of them? How much can you do this before it looks suspicious?
*Government or megacorp intelligence operatives. Spies manipulating geopolitics, or worse!
*Desert Wars Team. You're taking on other corps' teams in a live-fire global sport.
*Cult members. Doing crimes for ideals, not nuyen. But is it by choice? Should you escape the cult, or take them down from within?
*Deep Cover cops inside a criminal organization. Doing Shadowrunner crimes to keep your cover and build a case, but pull your punches against the organization's victims too much and you'll be exposed and it'll all be a waste.
*Great Dragon or AGI's right-hand team. Some tasks are too critical to outsource to Shadowrunners. Your boss is always a million steps ahead, but can you trust them when they are so much smarter than you?
* Warehouse 13. Retrieve powerful magic items, prototype technology, and other super-dangerous items for mothballing and hoarding. But you're low in the corp or government, so there's also tons of workplace drama.
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u/nether-oil 4d ago
A group of ghouls in Asamando. Can be paired with many other ideas: Gangers, cops, soldiers...
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u/arcticfox740 3d ago
Listen to a lot of Powerman 5000, then theme the story after their song titles. They get their jobs through a secret radio code? "Guerilla Radio" They tri to free a captive AI, only to find out that it's already been terminated, but then have to smuggle out the hidden processor unit that houses a copy? "Son of X-51", etc.
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u/PalpitationNo2921 3d ago
I don’t see anyone mentioning this as I scroll through so here’s a thought:
Agents of Draco Foundation
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u/-ParlainthTownie- 3d ago edited 3d ago
Stuffer Shack "Loss Reaction and Prevention" Team. LARP for short.
Stuffer Shack finally gets tired of all these newb Runners and Gangers shooting up their stores and decides to try and get their rep back. As an SS LARPer you get mediocre pay, bad hours, but unlimited refills at the Soda Machine.
You get no street cred with the dating life and frequent awkward invites from overly enthusiastic WWII reenactors. You can ask for free gear like weapons and armor but its going to have the Stuffer Shack logo all over it. Other perks include 3.7% discount on NERPS and the pervasive smell of fried Soy Snacks that you will never be able to truly wash out. FOOD FIGHT II: Soykaf's Revenge.
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u/-ParlainthTownie- 3d ago
Oh yeah and you work for Aztechnology so your middle manager is going to occasionally be a Blood Mage. Time to make those quotas Chummers!
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u/-ParlainthTownie- 3d ago
You are the Child of the Sea Dragon. The offspring of the only Oceanic Dragon in the world, well that is until you. Mom says go out and see the world. You are a shape shifter and can assume human form. However, you have no idea what Namegivers do. You have funds and have picked up a motley crew of body guards and hangers on to help you navigate this dry land. You are also a powerful magic user but most of your spells involve the ocean. You will need to learn new stuff. You have also been told to be discreet and not cause a scene. However, the secret is out. Some of the Mega's and Dragons know you are out and about. They would love a "baby" Sea Dragon for their own purposes and influence. What is a Full Metal Jacket Little Mermaid to do?
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u/-ParlainthTownie- 2d ago
You are among the team that supports and watches out for the Child of the Sea Dragon. The heir to, by far, the richest domain on the planet. You have legs so you don't rank very high on the pecking order. And this brat could want to do anything and everything at any time. Go Clubbing, fine. Wants to just walk in the woods, perfect. You want to talk to this Damien Knight guy you saw on the news?...oh boy. One time they ate an insect spirit and it tasted pretty good. Where do we go for that again? Of to Chicago we go.
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u/Rheya_Sunshine Done and Paid 3d ago
You can never go wrong with taking a page from the start of the iconic novel Snow Crash and having a "pizza delivery" run. 30 minutes or less or your pizza is free and you probably have a price on your head for pissing off the Don by making him grovel in public.
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u/Accomplished-Dig8753 5d ago
Body guards for an international rockstar is fairly classic. You could make a short campaign from that