10 in Ten, Seattle Olympic Bribapalooza Edition

So we have looked at the basics of the Brackhaven Machine (in Seattle Olympics 2076-The Bribapalooza Tour), and how construction and contracting firms get hired (hint: bribes, lots of bribes). So let us look at a few of these jobs you can have your players' Crew do:

1.  Mr. Johnson needs some muscle. He represents a firm up for a construction bid. Sadly, the competition has deeper pockets and a bigger bribery budget. So Mr. Johnson wants the Crew to disrupt, extort, and blackmail his opponents. And quickly, as the winning bid will be announced is just a couple of days. The Crew is going to have to hit hard and hit fast to pull this off.

   

   Just another day getting ready for the Olympics

2. Mr. Johnson needs some muscle. He represents a firm up for a construction bid. Fortunately, the firm he represents has deep pockets and greased all the right wheels. They are expecting to win this bid easily. However, some of the competing firms seem disgruntled. Looking to protect his firm and their bid, Mr. Johnson wants the Crew to disrupt, extort, and blackmail his opponents. And quickly, as the winning bid will be announced is just a couple of days. The Crew is going to have to hit hard and hit fast to pull this off.

   

   A typical business negotiation during the 2076 Olympics

3. Mr. Johnson needs some muscle. He represents a firm up for a construction bid. Fortunately, the firm he represents has deep pockets and greased all the right wheels. They are expecting to win this bid easily. However, some of the competing firms seem disgruntled. Looking to protect his firm and their bid, Mr. Johnson wants the Crew to protect his firm from disruption, extortion, and blackmail. And they will have to hit the ground running, as the winning bid will be announced is just a couple of days. The Crew is going to have to maintain excellent surveillance and anticipate trouble, as other shadow teams will be hitting hard and hitting fast to destroy the firms chances.

   

   Can you really resist adding a crazed Christopher Walken to your game?

4. And better yet, an astute Crew can play all sides against the other, ala Yojimbo/A Fist Full of Dollars/Last Man Standing (take your pick of movie sources, Mr. Black likes them all.) (Or go read the original, Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest.) 
5. With all the rampant bribery these Brackhaven Olympics have mustered, there is another side to it. As construction gets closer to kick-off, necessary infrastructure will be taking a hit. All that heavy machinery driving around, and all those citizens having to take detours. And a fix will be needed. And the Brackhaven administration surely won't want to pay for new roads when they can just have their kickback-paying construction firms do it, for free. After all, Brackhaven is not likely to get a third term, and him and his cronies need to feather their pockets now. And those firms may need some reminding about who is really in charge. So Mr. Johnson is paying Runners to put some fear into these builders. Whether it is classic strong arm extortion (you know, pictures of family members with cross hairs on them), or causing problems on work sites (to show how much more it will cost not to build roads/water lines/rail lines), it is all to the good, if you can call it that.
6. The above goes the other way sometimes. Once confronted with $300 million-nuyen bill for road upgrades that weren't included in the initial contract, some companies will push back. They don't need to strong arm Brackhaven himself, they can strike against members of Seattle's Olympic Planning Committee, and or members of the Seattle Direct Bank (SDB, a Brackhaven Investments hidden subsidiary that is handing out the official loans for Olympic construction) board. All that is needed is enough of a knife twist to get the OPC to put up funds, or better yet a SDB loan to cover the new expenses (which of course, can be renegotiated latter, or even forgiven).
7. "...(the builder) completed the job only to learn that the last tranche of money owed to him had gone to a number of other firms that he suspects were linked to certain officials overseeing the project. After complaining to his contacts at the (OPC), he was told to sit tight and not go to the police—the state would find lucrative work for him..." - Another version of the above is have Mr. Johnson hire the Runners to get some of that money back-either by hitting up the officials, or by hitting up their firms, hitting up the SOC, or better yet just straight hitting all three. This is a little tougher than number 6, as no one wants to give back their graft. But letting people within the Brackhaven SOC (Seattle Olympic Committee) steal the money the Brackhaven SOC promised you after you bribed the Brackhaven SOC to get the job that paid all the money in the first place (confused yet?) is bound to make someone angry enough to want retribution-or just their money.
   And sometimes you have to let everybody on the Bribapalooza carousel know they can't just push you around. Someone is going to pay this time. The GM can make this a straight Run, or the first act in a war.

   

   No one would go through all this for just $13 million!"

   Or this can go Payback*-style:"I can't pay you $300 million!" "We just want our $13 million." "No one would go through all this trouble for just for $13 million!"
8. There are of course many smaller companies that need help. Mr. Johnson represents one of these firms that has been shut out of the process. They don't have enough to bribe their way into a big contract. But maybe the Crew can harass a mid-tier contractor into hiring the small firm; sort of the opposite of 1-3. "Hire us or we will disrupt your operations to the point you can't get stuff done." This can easily turn into a mini-campaign as the Crew now has to protect them against retaliation, use their "influence" to expand operations and gain new contracts. Really, this would be like starting a new crime outfit. The crew starts by using threats and backs them up with violence and blackmail. They then work their (and the firm's) way up until they have gone legitimate. Of course, the end of the mini-campaign can be an old, deadly enemy coming back for revenge-a disgruntled opponent, an enemy runner team back with new members and upgrades, or the Ciarniello family showing to put everyone in their place.
9. Mr. Johnson has a job for a Crew that has the "proper touch". He represents a smaller firm that is being harassed out of bids. The opposition has strong ties to Humanis, and the firm hires lots of metahumans, and is tired of scut work and deadly jobs. They want a bigger place at the table, and need some muscle to get them there. Can the Crew put some racist in there place?
10. Mr. Johnson has a job for a top runner team. Jamie Rodriguez, reporter for KSAF, needs protection. She is investigating the Brackhaven SOC and all the bribery going on. Can the Crew keep her alive long enough to expose the truth? And does the Crew want to keep her alive long enough to expose their involvement in all this? Can they do the job and steer her away from their activities (which may be ongoing)? Or are they prepared to show Jamie the dirty nasty heart of the Seattle Olympics, by way of their own experiences? Somebody is going to be number one with a bullet-will it be the hottest news expose of the year, or a bullet in the head? Only the Crew's conscious and abilities will tell...

 *Mr. Black hasn't checked out the Straight Up cut yet.

Notes:

• Article on The New Yorker concerning Sochi Olympics and epic bribery levels
• this piece from Bloomberg.

Seattle Olympics 2076 - The Bribapalooza Tour

Mr. Black has more ideas for runs with an Olympic background. (We will get back to the genocidal Hell on Earth part soon...) But before we get into the fun stuff, let us explore the meat of the matter. Mr. Black is extrapolating that Kenneth Brackhaven and his administration are using the Olympics as a platform for massive bribery and corruption. He and his administration are also using the Olympics as a cover for all that bribery; the massive construction needed and the urgency of the deals (the deadline is pretty strict after all) allow Brackhaven to get away with almost any deal.  How does all of this work?

Brackhaven, as Seattle Governor, has staffed the Seattle Olympic Committee (SOC) with his cronies and yes men. They in turn (under Brackhaven's direction) have filled the Olympic Planning Committee (the OPC, charged with getting all the infrastructure and construction done) with more cronies and yes men.  Construction firms submit bids to the OPC; the OPC is under no obligation to accept the lowest bid- sometimes the "better" bid is the winning bid. This can be due to a bid allegedly being finished faster, being constructed with less distress to the neighborhood (traffic congestion is a big issue with homeowners), the bid being completed by a more reputable firm, said firm already having all the trucks and equipment in place, etc. The real truth is most likely that the Fix is in; simply the bigger bribe wins.

This is 1920's Chicago/Huey Long/Tammany Hall levels of corruption. The bidding firms either pay off Brackhaven directly (through "bagmen" of course), who funnels down money and directives, or they pay off OPC members, who funnel it up and the advise Brackhaven on who is playing ball the best. These firms are not immune to this either. While not even B-level corps, most construction firms are contracting firms; they hire other, smaller construction firms to do the jobs. These smaller firms are naturally paying off the contracting corp-how else can the contractors pay for the bribes they pay Brackhaven's machine? Of course, these firms must be hiring union labor (these unions kick back dues monies to Brackhaven's administration of course), except for the truly dangerous jobs-that's what metahumans are for after all.

"And what has been the Governor's reaction to these problems? He wants to fire Seattle's hard working police! Clean up starts at home, and Kenneth Brackhaven's the man for the job!" - an excerpt from one of Kenneth Brackhaven's Gubernatorial campaign speeches (from Runner Havens) 

Let us not think that this is all just construction scams. The "police" are in on this as well. How do you think Knight Errant got the policing job in Seattle? Remember that Brackhaven ran for Governor in 2070 as a supporter of Lone Star. He clashed with his opposition candidates on this support consistently. Then why the change? What, you actually think Lone Star was too racist for Kenneth Brackhaven?!? No. Lone Star wouldn't play ball. Even Clayton Wilson was uncomfortable with the amount of corruption Brackhaven was hinting at. So a hidden slush fund slid Brackhaven's way with KE on the cover. Why would Knight Errant and squeaky-clean Ares sully themselves this way? Money. Lots and lots of money. Knight Errant understood they would get the job, and still be in place during the Olympics. The Olympics contract will double the officers on the beat. That's something like 200,000 extra jobs. And their taking over Seattle would shake Lone Star's grip on law enforcement world-wide. Lots of contracts eventually went KE's way after 2072. Enough to make one wonder what KE and Ares may have to do with the Mayan Cutter cases and the Tempo crisis. But that is a theory for another day. All we need to understand right now is that Ares greased Brackhaven's wheels hard to put themselves in the catbird seat. The day-to-day officers won't be on the take, but they know who is buttering their bread. 

So Seattle passes new taxes to pay for the Olympics (this was done under the previous administration!). Brackhaven uses these taxes, along with Corporate sponsorship deals to fund the construction. The firms bidding to win construction work bribe either Brackhaven, the SOC or the OPC. They in turn take bribes from those hoping to get contracted work. And the unions (electrical, HVAC, carpentry, etc.) get all the labor contracts, and then kick money up. And keeping a cover on all of this is a modern efficient police force, which is also kicking money up. So the bribery train goes round and round. And Brackhaven's administration is getting a taste at every level. And all paid for by citizens and rival corps. That is how a political machine works.

Assuming the Crew is not just muscle for the Machine, how do they get in on this? The most likely answer is that one of the competing firms hires them. They will be hired to disrupt rivals (to show the OPC that the rival is not a competent firm), extort rivals (with the threat of disruption and all that that entails), blackmail rivals (with dirt that the Crew digs up), or to protect the firm from being disrupted, extorted or blackmailed. variations upon these themes are the basis for our next 10 in Ten. Stay tuned, same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel.

10 in Ten, Country Fried Edition

"Country fried, baptized in gravy
Can't wash off what the good Lord made ya
No matter how far that highway goes
An old dirt road'll get you home..."

So the Crew has left the confines of whatever city they call home and are out and about in the fresh invigorating air of the countryside. Or a paranoid schizophrenic Children of the Corn horror fest. Or if they are lucky, something in between. The American Wilderness has always presented Europeans with a feeling of dread. And Native Americans have a long history of cannibalism, Big Foots, and little men in the woods. And damn near every one of Grimm's fairy tales takes place deep in the woods. For a reason, the woods are a creepy place. Dark, full of vision blocking trees, and viscous man-eating beasts (some of who are actual beasts and some of which are men) and far from any civilized help, there is a reason the Greek god of the woods in Pan. As in an unreasoning fear that overtakes one in the woods, AKA panic. And for city folks, the long horizons and lack of people is off-putting. Combine all that with American Midwestern and Southern values and culture and you have more than a Run, you can have a game. And based upon rednblack's query over on the Shadowgrid forum boards, what the hell is happening out there in the tulies is a question for many GM's. So Mr. Black is back with a 10 in Ten on backwoods adventures, the Country Fried Edition...

1. So the local Sheriff has been going power hungry. Well not power so much as money hungry. Sheriffs are not elected any more, they are part of a corporate law enforcement contract, AKA Knight Errant/Lone Star/Hard Corps. And those contracts specify civil forfeiture as part and parcel of the Sheriffs job. And the Sheriff is bucking for promotion/trying to save his job/just following orders. But the locals have had enough. And the Williams family has been hard hit, with both their trucks being impounded just for parking in their front yard. Now they want the Crew to get back their trucks and take the Sheriff down a peg...
2. The Crew is going cross-country, when they stop in Shelbyville to repair and refuel. The local yokels notice all the keen gear the Crew is driving/carrying, and makes the Crew an offer: free fuel and repairs in exchange for playing ringers in the annual Urban Brawl/Combat Biker homecoming extravaganza against next door neighbor and heated rival Springfield.
3. Things have gotten hot down in the backwoods.

   

   Worth killing for? Mr. Black says, "Hell yes!"

   The Likkle Splick, a diner in Shelbyville, has been feuding with Springfield's own Nadine's Diner for years. This time some out-of-town media has claimed Nadine's red-eye gravy is the best, and them is fightin' words 'round here. So the Likkle Splick is hiring their own out-of-towners, the Crew, to get the recipe so they can break it down and adopt it to their own. The pay won't be the best, but the Crew can count on all the chicken-fried steak and garbage plates of real meat they can stuff down their craws.
4. Or perhaps something is off in Shelbyville. Like drugs. Who know the backwoods would make a great distribution center for a drug empire. And the locals don't take kindly to strangers, especially those going back to the big city (and federal levels of law enforcement.) And now they want the Crew to stick around, permanent-like. You can run the locals as a small gang or Mafia soldiers. Or they could be country boys with hunting rifles, sniping from rooftops and from behind trees.Of go full Fury Road-monster trucks flying the Stars and Bars and full of freaks with guns, flying out of the trees to cut off the Crew.
5. Of course, the above could go the other way.

   

   Were you expecting a Charger jumping a creek?

   A crew could pick up a little smuggling job to enrich their cross-country run. If they are successful, this could become regular work. It is up to the GM whether this sideline is just paperwork or a full nights work. Or maybe after a few "milk" runs, the sheriff comes in. He is, of course, in the pocket of another drug cartel. This could end up Justified (the criminal element, not the Marshals department), Season 4 Archer, or just maybe, full Dukes of Hazzard mode. Just like most runners, the Dukes..

   Been in trouble with the law,

   Since the day they was born...

6. Mr. Johnson needs a bodyguard detail. Perhaps it is the Draco Foundation or the Atlantean Group that is hiring. Or the University of Washington, the University of Chicago or Marshall College is doing the hiring. Or perhaps the PCC or the Sioux Nation is paying. Whoever it is, the Crew is wanted for an expedition into the Great North American Wilderness looking for a "lost tribe" said to be living upon especially magical land. You can play this up as a "pinkskin" tribe hiding out, ala Amazonian tribal people, or the Sentinelese. Basically take any movie about explorers going up river, and put in in North America. Think Apocalypse Now/The Emerald Forest.

   

   In the ruins of Old Detroit...

7. You could also slide the above run. Here Mr. Johnson is planning a jaunt into country for telesma. He needs the Crew to watch his back while he goes through some old growth areas. He is not too worried about rival corporations, rival telesma hunters, local constabulary or meta-flora/fauna. Nope, he informs the Crew, there is a much bigger danger out there. The remnants. Those who just stayed behind after civilization moved on. This is a much darker version of the above, with dread, lots of perception checks and jump scares. For flavor, try Southern Comfort/Deliverance, or you can go the whole The Hills Have Eyes/Cannibal Holocaust/House of 1000 Corpses/any Rob Zombie movie route. Or Mr. Black assumes Green Inferno...
8. Speaking of rural horror, the Crew could always pull up in a deserted small town. They need gas/electricity to keep going. But the pumps are dry/the power is off. They keep catching glimpses of movement. As you build the paranoia, darkness starts to fall. And then the locals come out. Maybe they're ghouls. Maybe they're vampires. Maybe they're cannibalistic clowns. Or maybe they are good old boys, out to make someone squeal...
9. Need more horror? What is Mr. Black saying, of course you do!* So the locals are scared. And eventually the Crew notices that there aren't a lot of kids about. Finally the locals muster up the courage to ask the Crew for help. Their kids are going missing. and just last week a brother and sister went into the woods and haven't been seen since.

   

   Yum, yum get me some...

   When the Crew goes out to the woods, they find something terrible. Bones, lots of kids bones. Is it a Wendigo? More cannibalistic clowns? Better yet, they find a house, deep in the woods. And it appears to be made of pastry. Specifically, gingerbread. Is the Crew in time to save the siblings from an insane mage/hag/Black Annis who is fattening them up?
10. Use the above as a template for converting any fairy tale/Disney cartoon into something dark in the hinterlands. "Please help me! My daughter left this morning to take food to her grandmother and hasn't returned!" "Please help us! The mayor's daughter has magical powers and has turned the whole town into ice!" "Help me! My daughter married last year and I haven't heard from her since. Why yes, her husband's beard is so black it appears blue in certain light." "Please help us! Our town is being terrorized by a huge dark lion and packs of hyenas! They have destroyed everything in the area and now are hunting us in our homes!" "Please help us! A strange man came into town, played a strange tune, and all of our children followed him out of town! Please save them!" "Please help me! My son won't leave the local lake. Why yes, it is full of mermaids and giant were-squids!" 
11. EXTRA BONUS!! Does number 10 not sound scary/fun/scary fun enough? Lets go through the examples. The first is Red Riding Hood. This is your chance to throw a metric buttload of werewolves at your players. Throw The Howling/The Village/Skinwalkers/Wild Country/Dog Soldiers into a blender and enjoy.And remember the An American Werewolf in London starts in the sticks...do you dare to run a game where one of the characters is bitten, returns to the big city and slowly transformed into a form-changing serial killer? Not a shapeshifter, but a missing-time, waking up in sheets covered in blood and crapping out body parts murderous wolfen cannibal? Look at AAWIL of course, but also The Wolf. And who could miss a chance to rip on Frozen? Throw that chick-flick stuff to the curb, and think teen-aged blood mage uncontrollably manifesting ice spells and summoning ice spirits. Does your Crew have the mojo and the magic to stop her? And do it before her even more powerful repressed sister shows up? The third is of course Bluebeard, a classic tale based on a real person who murdered hundreds of children and enacted months-long miracle plays to gain satanic wealth and power, and maybe the love of Joan of Arc. Yes, really. It is perhaps the primogenitor of castle/house/cabin in the woods where people go and don't come out. Need a hook? One of the character's Dependent's sister/aunt has gone missing. "Honey, I am really worried about my sister. Can you get your little band of friends to go and take a look?" The fourth is everyone's favorite, Hamlet..err, Simba the White Lion...err, The Lion King. What group of players can resist saving a small town from a pack of carnivores? And bring a little The Ghost and the Darkness to it, which is based again on reality(loosely, because, Hollywood), and a little The Brotherhood of the Wolf, which is also based on real events (loosely, because cool narrative/conspiracy trumps reality**). And read Peter Capstick's Death in the Long Grass, which has a chapter on wolf packs attacking entire Russian villages (and is one of Mr. Black's favorite books ever), or here, here, here, or here. And of course the Pied Piper of Hamelin is really a wizard/shaman using spells (or an Adept with social powers and a flute foci) to steal children (perhaps to sell to the hag of Hansel and Gretel?) for his own sick purposes. Being Shadowrun, he is extorting towns for cash and needs to be stopped. Hope the crew brought ear plugs. And lastly, Disney's Little Mermaid, in reverse. Mr. Black double dares you to fill a large lake with selkies, mermaids, sirens and/or merrows, along with krakens/werekrakens, and have Mr. Johnson hire your crew to exterminate them all to save local menfolk from the evil beasts. Mr. Black triple-dog dares you!

* As the great Kenneth Hite says, it is not if your campaign is a horror campaign, but when it becomes a horror campaign.
** Any movie based on real events that somehow combines secret history, conspiracy, Kung Fu, Native American badasses, super sexy French women and Monica Bellucci, wild crazy gypsies, flintlocks, a deadly monster, bits of Sherlock Holmes, and is filmed with bravura style and great cinematography is bound to be one of Mr. Black's favorites, and is consumed in a yearly viewing ritual.