General
I genuinely enjoy running plots. I rarely get the opportunity to GM Shadowrun (or any game, for that matter) in real life, and I greatly enjoy telling interactive stories. I would say it is my primary focus with Nikolai, in fact, even more than actually playing the character himself.
I do my best to cater to what sort of runs the runners themselves would like to go on, so if you have an idea for something you've always wanted to see, but have yet to actually see anyone run it, hit me up. I may be interested.
Approach
I know the common approach to plots on Denver is to run one-off scenes of a few hours' time for ludicrous payouts, but I'm afraid that isn't what I go for. If you're in one of my plots, you will do a lot of roleplaying, and it will take a lot of time. We will not finish in one session, in no small part because I thoroughly enjoy all the stuff that most GMs skip over, such as legwork, investigation, and planning.
I'm a big believer in the possibility of failure. Runs go wrong all the time in the setting, but rarely do they go wrong on our game, at least in a manner that more firepower won't fix. That's a trend I dislike. It's possible to irrevocably screw up in my plots. Of course, I'm also a believer in the idea that when a door closes, a window opens.
I tend to run comparatively heavy on narrative and background and comparatively light on combat. I have ideas for (and have successfully run) plots in which combat never takes place. If you prefer to iron out the plan via OOC chat and get right to shooting, chances are you wouldn't enjoy the kind of stuff I run.
Common Elements Of Things I Run
Data Dumps - I will throw a truckload of information at you, almost always, and I make frequent use of off-site wikis to keep it organized and accessible. I rarely tell you only what you need to know; I try to tell you what whoever's giving you the information knows, regardless of how useful it is. I do a lot of background planning for potential avenues that players never take. It's fine, though. It's how I relax.
Travel - Denver's a great setting. It's also a setting that I'm pretty sure no one, myself included, actually understands, with all the borders and different factions and whatnot. I like to get players out of it for plots, and I especially like hitting up parts of the Sixth World that don't get seen all that often. In other words, you won't be jetting off to Seattle, but you may wind up in Cheyenne or the Salish-Shidhe wilds.
Relatively Low Power - People spend a lot of time working to improve their characters, and I don't want them to feel like it's all for nothing when they get in one of my plots. On the other hand, I have little interest in running things for people who can beat Lofwyr in hand-to-hand combat (or, more precisely, I have little interest in running punch-all-the-things-style plots for characters who can beat Lofwyr in hand-to-hand combat). Chances are pretty good that if you're an extremely powerful shadowrunner in Denver, I will find some way to make you a little less powerful somewhere else (see the next entry), whether that be limiting the kind of gear your local contacts (see previous entry) can provide, or setting up scenarios where being able to punch out Lofwyr doesn't matter, because your goal is to outsmart him. That said? Characters absolutely deserve their moments of awesome. Sometimes your moment of awesome may come from an aspect of your character that's under-utilized in other plots, is all.
Players In The Driver's Seat - I like to give you an objective and let you come up with your own method of getting it. On occasion, various methods may be suggested or even required by Mr. Johnson, but rarely will they be straitjacket plans that you cannot put your own personal touch on. Beyond that, I do not like to handhold; you're told where to go and what you need to do, but everything else is up to you. There's no 'right' way to tackle one of my plots. Shadowteams A, B, and C might go in guns blazing, but Shadowteam D might decide to hit up the local costume store and infiltrate by pretending to be the clowns at the head honcho's kid's birthday party, or spend a couple weeks making really good friends with the lonely overnight security manager to swipe his passcodes. All good. You won't throw me for a loop, but you will likely have to do a lot of planning, which tends to lead to a lot of…
Down Time - Remember how I said above that players in my plots will wind up doing a lot of roleplaying? This is part of the reason why. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but if you wind up in Algiers to get the McGuffin du jour, chances are very good that you will have a lot of scenes that involve nothing more than, for example, getting familiar with the city, making local contacts to get gear, etc.
Consequences - A lot of people interpret consequences as bad. That's not what I mean. While the results of your actions can wind up being bad for you (just as they can wind up being good for you), above all what I mean by this is that I want you, the player, to feel as though you're part of a living, breathing world, and that the run you just completed didn't take place in some pocket dimension where it and everything related to it will stay, forgotten as soon as you've turned your back to it.
