Many, many moons ago, I had a PC run through the SR2 Harlequin campaign. It was great. So I thought, when my players wanted a dose of SR, I'd run them through this behemoth.
I tried to do this once before - a couple of years ago - but we disintegrated and everyone wanted to play D&D before I got to the meat of Harlequin, so I thought I'd give it another go.
First scenario, I thought I'd make life easy - an intro to get them used to the rules, as it were. Second scenario was the first part of Harlequin, modified so that the players didn't recognise that they were getting essentially the same adventure. Third one up (which they are tackling now) sees them hunting a deranged elemental: in an homage to an old Dungeon adventure, it is called "The Mud Sorcerer's Doom."
Here's an update of how it's gone so far...
So, the group get brought together by a mysterious message on their phones. They hadn't met before, but were pulled together by a fixer, meeting at an office at the E-Z Burger Bar in the Renraku Arkology. Their task: locate a group of runners who had stolen data from a Corp, then reneged on the deal and were trying to hoik it out to the highest bidder.
The new party - a 'Gator Shaman, a Dove Shaman (an aged native Inuit, I kid you not), a Weaponsmith who has a secret identity and runs when in full body armour, a Physical Adept with a Distance Strike ability to go with Killing Hands and a Rigger/ Hacker - get to work, trawling the Matrix for the offer of stolen data, making contact with the perps and negotiating a deal, whilst putting a trace on to find out where they were.
The location was an abandoned factory out in The Barrens, and (Concealed by a City Spirit) the PhysAd scouted it out, spotting a couple of threats and a Server in a ramshackle office. After tooling up, they headed out to the factory and tried to infiltrate the factory. There was, however, a lot of open ground and they got spotted by a hidden guard (a nasty PhysAd). The drek hit the fan and there was a short and nasty firefight, which resulted in the runners taking out the bad guys.
While this was happening, the rigger and the 'Gator Shaman had spotted a suspicious black van near the factory. They checked it out, and found two goons and a rigger preparing a number of camera drones. They killed all the guys and discovered that the van and drones belonged to Killstream, an illegal TV channel which pits teams of runners against each other for the betting pleasure of blood-thirsty viewers. They have stolen the van and all the kit (drones and all) it contains.
Back in the factory, the other runners discover that there was no stolen info after all. The server and all other media was blank. Hmm...
And returning to the E-Z Burger Bar, their contact has mysteriously vanished and the staff have no knowledge of him.
Somewhat disgruntled at a lack of pay (though they were able to loot credsticks off the corpses of the runners in the factory) and being conned, the group start to put out feelers for more work!
The E-Z Burger Bar. Sounds like the SR version of the 'Green Dragon' Tavern (in Greyhawk), where PCs & NPCs gather to get info and go off to the next adventure... Likewise, I've masked old material that the players avoided or didn't choose, and passed it off as something new. Good way to cut down on your work load as GM.
The E-Z Burger Bar. Sounds like the SR version of the 'Green Dragon' Tavern (in Greyhawk), where PCs & NPCs gather to get info and go off to the next adventure... Likewise, I've masked old material that the players avoided or didn't choose, and passed it off as something new. Good way to cut down on your work load as GM.
There's also the generic SR StufferShack (full of soy-based nastiness) and - a hangover from a short "Vampire" game we played recently - "Chicken Roulette" the sort of UK-based kebab/ fried chicken/ pizza take-away where the meat on the menu might not be what you get...
Their second job was the first part of the "Harlequin" adventure, much adapted so that they do not realise it is the same scenario many of them have played already!
Ehran the Scribe has been replaced with Elucian Caliburn, a prospective candidate for Mayor of Seattle. As a prominent Elf Businessman, he has a good chance to take the city in new directions (but his policies are all hippy, tree-hugging c*** which will bankrupt the place!).
The gang were invited to a swish hotel for a business meet. At the door of the suite, they were accosted by a bunch of ork hard-men, whose sole purpose was to see how the PC's dealt with them. A punch was thrown before calmer heads prevailed, and the orks were paid off with a bucket - each - from the local Chicken Roulette (delivered, with obvious disdain, by the concierge). The Johnson then offered them a contract to steal Caliburn's hard copy of the speech he was due to deliver from his house, and implant a computer virus into his campaign office system. They took the job (little realising that the earlier altercation would cost them nuyen).
Here, they decided to go after the orks, reasoning that if someone wanted to "stop" them getting to Mr Johnson, they needed to know about it. Shadow, the rigger/ hacker downloaded footage from the hotel CCTV and was able to work out where they were going (the local Stuffer Shack). Everyone piled down there and confronted them as they ate. Nebulous Black decided that he wasn't getting answers quickly enough, and cold-bloodedly executed one of the gang. They came up with the goods, that they were getting paid in the service yard of the hotel that evening. They were told to be good little orks and not go to the meet. The runners went to the hotel yard instead and found their Mr Johnson smoking a filthy cheroot, apparently waiting for someone. This left them very confused!
After that, things went smoothly: they researched the campaign office (astral and drone-cams, that they had got from the Killstream job) and managed to finesse a back-door way into the building. Once in, they implanted the chip and sneaked out - all this under cover of an Improved Invisibility spell, with the Inuit Shaman sweating it out in concentration in the van. They managed a similar infiltration into Caliburn's house - they were able to work out a ground plan due to appearances on "Celebrity Lifestyle TV" shows, so they knew where to go, aided by more spells.
All in all, a slick operation with few shots fired, run like clockwork with clever tactics from the players.
Next: The Mud Sorceror's Doom!
Harlequin is a ROUGH adventure, especially for fresh fish.
Harliquin's Back does have some awesome adventure locations that can be yoinked for other games if one doens't want to do the whole thing.