$Insert_Title, Episode 6

Cast: Mr. Fahrenheit, Madoka, Hueco, Engie, Jammer

Previously on...

Two three-second scenes play from the previous episode. The first depicting the semi-truck pulled over and the two runner teams surrounding it, with Fahrenheit's illusions of tigers and disco lights activated. The second is the scene where the runners hand off the guitar to Tiga.

Freeze frame, record scratch.

Producer: Wait, this stuff actually happened. Tom, I was expecting more footage like last time. What do you mean there's none? Fine. Roll the intro.

Smash cut to title card.

Plot Summary

The show opens with a shot of Engie in a workshop from behind. He appears to be building something, though the audience cannot see what he is working on.

We cut to a boxing ring and observe Slag watching Hueco quizzically. Hueco wraps up his training and climbs out and upnods Slag, asking him what's up. The two of them have a conversation and once Slag realizes who Hueco is we discover that he was a fan of Hueco's from back in his wrestling days. Hueco tells him to keep it on the down-low to which Slag agrees.

Slag asks Hueco about his experience shadowrunning, as Slag has only done one job. Slag's impression of Shadowrunners were mostly inspired by action trids, but Slag's and Hueco's teams seem to both avoid violence. Hueco gives Slag some life advice, which Slag takes graciously.During this scene the players learn about Manifest's team.

• Manifest's team all have hobbies and do not focus so hard on run preparedness when they are not on one.
• "Manifest spends most of her time hitting on girls, and Hog spends most of his time doing wheelies on his bike and shit."
• They have an on-boarding process for new runners, which caused some of the players to consider defecting.

When their conversation comes to an end, we cut back to Engie who is wearing welding goggles and working at an anvil hammering white-hot steel. Sparks are flying out of the forge in the background.

Mr. Fahrenheit is watching a pre-trideo movie (The 2000s Charlie's Angels). A tight shot of Fahrenheit's face as his eyes widen and he abruptly stands up. He throws on a denim jacket and gets on his motorbike and rides off into the Seattle sunset.

Engie is sitting in front of a still-sparking forge drinking tea. Pinky out.

Jammer is at the arcade editing the footage from Engie's drone that had been following the car chase. He adds too many special effects, and sells it for ‎¥‎20. It is then stolen and re-posted on social media without credit and goes viral.

Engie is back at the work desk with his back to the screen. Over the sound of a welding torch a news broadcast can be heard talking about a truck robbery two weeks ago.

Madoka and Manifest have been talking via text. We get a shot of Madoka's phone, showing that she just asked Manifest to come over to hang out. The camera pulls back to show her room as an absolute mess and is littered with old boxes of pizza and boxes of Chinese take-out. We get a very anime-style cleaning scene where we only see the outside of Madoka's front door while loud crashing noises play.

Madoka and Manifest talk and have drinks, eventually leading to an awkward "You can do so much better than Shadowrunning" talk, which leaves Madoka feeling very uncomfortable. The conversation ends abruptly when Madoka gets a call from her fixer, Johnathan, regarding a new job and tells her to meet at a diner. Madoka and Manifest part ways, and Manifest tells Madoka to stay safe.

The runners meet up at the diner specified by Johnathan and are greeted by Mr. Fahrenheit who is mysteriously wearing a tear-away mariachi costume. They all put on the costumes that Fahrenheit purchased for them and order tacos at the diner. This group is fucking weird.

They meet the Mr. Johnson who is speaking to them on behalf of a corporate client. The job is to defame and ruin the personal and professional lives of one Jean-Paul Dubois, the head of Biotech R&D at Evo Corporation. No casualties, no collateral damage to Evo Corporation, and no fabricating evidence. The man evidently has more than enough skeletons in his closet that it should not be necessary.

The group returns to Engie's workshop and Madoka and Jammer drop into the matrix for twelve-hour passive recon on Jean-Paul. They turn up some company information and the names of some of his ex-secretaries, Erika Ibott and Louise Bishop, who both lost their corporate jobs and descended rapidly into poverty after about six months of working for the man. Mr. Fahrenheit practices impersonating [music artist], raises Impersonation.The group drives off on into the heavy rain the next evening to search out Erika Ibott. They hack into the camera in front of her apartment and see Erika leaving in the evening. Madoka tries to speak to her on the street, but gets left alone.

Post Session Notes

Note: This post was finished after the next session, so these post-session notes are from both 2018-04-14 and 2018-04-21.

A shorter session. Gamemastering investigation-based adventures are difficult and I will adjust the information flow in the next session. I might have to read The Sprawl and see what I can gleam from their Assets and Information mechanics and see if I can port anything over to Shadowrun.

I tend to do a lot of improvisation, and having to come up with a whole bunch of data for players to use can be rather difficult on the fly. Giving them some kind of resource that they can gather while searching and then expend to get a bonus or a lead when things slow down narratively.

I need to have some characters port over their character sheets to Roll20 since they are still having difficulty with Chummer's interface (I don't blame them, it's bad). The Shadowrun 5e sheet does not properly import all data from Chummer but I can correct the errors on my own.