Though there are many independant operators in the Sixth World, suited to all imanner of less-than-legal endeavors, once jobs rise to the level of requiring organized teams to succeed there is a fairly universal methodology for conducting business, on both sides of the transaction.
A fixer is someone who knows a lot of people, and is the go-to resource for both shadowrunners looking for work and organizations looking to utilize deniable assets. They’re also brokers of information and available to trade any and all loot “acquired” on the job (read: stolen). Most importantly, dealing with them is all business—they only succeed by keeping cool, not playing favorites, and always taking a percentage. If you don’t have something you need, a fixer either has it or knows someone who does.
All clients are affectionately known in the business as “Mr./Mrs. Johnson”, and they reach out to one or more fixers with base details of an operation, such as type of job, expected resistance, time-line, geographical region, and nature of target. Some fixers have ongoing relationships with particular corporations or Johnsons, but fixers as a rule won’t reveal the identities or associations of their upstream or downstream clients.
If the fixer thinks they have an individual or team suitable to the task, they will reach out to the group and make arrangements for an initial meeting. Sometimes Johnsons want to meet at specific locations, sometimes that decision is left to the fixer. Regardless, their goal is to make sure both parties are comfortable and a good fit for one another—they only get the finder’s fee if the client is happy with the service, after all.
The Meet
The team, once assembled with the Johnson, hears a bit more about the mission, including more specific time-lines, expectations, and particulars of the request at hand. If the team agrees to the job—and generally if they agree to the meet they’re halfway to agreeing anyway—the negotiation begins.
Usually there is some manner of wiggle room in the stated compensation, be it a percentage of pay up-front, an increased total amount, or additional considerations for going over and beyond expectations, et cetera. If the number is agreed upon, the Johnson provides the rest of the intel and the compact is sealed.
Legwork
It is a fool’s errand to jump into a mission without any preparation, and in the shadows “preparation” usually equates to “information.” This could include casing the location(s) of the job, asking contacts for favors or advice, equipment, or details not available to the general public, doing Matrix or magical searches, and even some light infiltration work on the runners’ part to make sure they have everything they need. All in all, the more informed and prepared the team is, the greater the chance for success.
Helmuth von Moltke may have said that “no plan survives first contact with the enemy,” but when things go wrong—and they will go wrong—the only thing separating salvaging the job from unhinged chaos is a solid and well-practiced strategy. Good runners ensure they have plenty of time to acquire the information, equipment, and plans they need to execute a clean run; if that prep time isn’t available, the Johnson needs to be prepared to pay a premium or the team needs to be willing to walk away.
Lights, Camera, Action
Every job is different. One day runners may be hired to ambush a car dealership mascot on the day of a big promotion, another they may find themselves flying to California in order to disrupt the power grid. Some jobs are as straight-forward as “obtain this information”, while some are more complicated and complex like first obtaining a particular corrupted magical reagent and then switching it for the materials a Lodge will be using for a big spell.
Most Johnsons want quiet professionalism, except where otherwise explicitly stated. Noise draws attention and collateral damage certainly causes noise. While every corporation and government entity engages in clandestine operations, the last thing any Johnson wants is something going sideways enough to draw unwarranted investigation by the target, the media, or their own superiors. Again, this is where having a workable and rehearsed plan comes into play; ad-libbing is where the spiral of unintended consequences starts getting very wide, very quickly.
The Finish
At the end of a mission all that remains is to get paid. Whether dropping off an item that was stolen or uploading a cracked file to a particular datastore, once the mission is complete the Johnson will verify it was done to their satisfaction and release the remaining funds/goods, (very) occasionally offering a bonus—even if not negotiated beforehand—for exceptional work.
Depending how the runners handled the mission and themselves, their reputation will increase (or decrease) with either individual parties or the overall shadow community as a whole. The louder and flashier a job goes, the more likely the public at large will hear about it as well, which is generally bad news for those who like to keep a low profile.
Occasionally select Johnsons (and their corporate overlords) will be impressed enough with a running team’s continued successes that they will start contacting the team directly, bypassing the fixer altogether. Generally the specifics of such an arrangement are worked out such that the fixer who first introduced the team gets continued compensation as well, to minimize the chance for hurt feelings and retaliation. These relationships can be incredibly valuable and lucrative for running teams and corporations both, but not every group wants to tie their future to a specific company.
Extra Loot
Occasionally a mission ends and the runners find themselves in possession of gear, data, or other items which they want to trade in for cash. Shadowrunners often use the services of a fence to offload extra goods, someone with an established trade network. Failing that, any fixer worth their salt is all but guaranteed to know someone who is interested in buying. As a rule the team won’t get retail prices for hot or stolen gear, but offloading the extra can provide a nice payday bonus on top of a lucrative mission.
Downtime
After the run is over, unless there is already another job in the pipe, teams will generally wait for the phone to ring. They’ll spend this time honing their respective crafts, resting up, shopping for goodies, or engaging in vices and personal hobbies to pass the time. When they’re ready to start running again, which could be immediately, they’ll put out feelers to fixers and Johnsons that they’re in the market for more work.
Sample Adventures
Here is a brief list of missions that Shadowrunners can be hired to perform. In all honesty though, the jobs are as varied as the corporations who hire them. While some teams specialize on one or two kinds of task, any conceivable work that corporate interests don’t want to dirty their own hands with is fair game, making the possibilities almost endless.
- Steal research data so a competitor can catch up with their own product R&D
- A pre-Awakening research laboratory has been discovered and needs to be cleared before sending in scientists
- A company is having a big exposition of a new product; make sure it fails (preferably on-camera)
- Steal cargo from a ship before it can be logged by the harbor master
- Investigate the disappearance of a local heiress before it becomes a media firestorm
- Protect an up-and-coming rock superstar from a maniacal fan
- Another team screwed up a mission and left the package in a hot zone. Clean up their mess
- Convince a local gang that nobody on the block will be paying them protection any more
- Coerce a media personality to out the dirty secrets of their coworkers, on-air
- Kidnap a playboy from his own birthday party and deliver him to the Johnson
- “Liberate” an artifact currently on display in a museum
- Find the long-lost final studio recording of a late music icon
- Exorcise a building of its malevolent spirits