You need to give the players a sense of achievement and progress in their battle with the "big bad" or they will become frustrated, keys to this I've found for villains are:
- Contact Keep contact with the big bad minimal (it'll only go wrong anyway) have them act through minions and seconds like any good overlord should. Any direct social interactions should be very carefully managed as players will do insane things to try and take them out that have no baring on their own survival.
- Make them feel clever Give the players a chance to outsmart the BB; something where they work out what the BB is doing before their plans can get fully realised, not always last minute stuff - as that gets very cliche.
- Active not reactive Minions are two a penny; any decent BB has a backstory and people/places/resources that they've known and trusted for years. Let the players find out about them and go out and do something that hurts the BB (freeing a dragon, killing an evil ally, etc) that isn't part of the BB's plans.
- Progress There will be setbacks, but try and keep them minimal; if the players feel they are never getting anywhere in dealing with the BB then they will get frustrated and give up or do something crazy.
Ideal BB's I've found are the heads of large organisations; such as Kingdoms, Temples, Crime Syndicates. The latter is especially good as you can have a single encounter with the BB as usually noone actually knows who this guy is who sent them on one of their first missions, they they get a delicious "oh no, it was them!" moment later on.
Large organisations are also good because the players have something tangeable to work against, if it's a single bad entity then they can't do anything except against one guy. If it's a crime syndicate organisation then each time they uncover a higher and more important secret cell of workers they get more information, one step closer to the BB and they can feel that they are doing something
Making them hate the BB
Players have loathed enemies I've had for them. Ways I found to trigger this - don't overuse or you'll end up frustrating them and annoying them!
- Cheat them. Players can be remarkably trusting, an early meet the the villain where he gets them to do something that is a setup (attacking a convoy of "stolen goods" so the evil guy can use the distraction) When they find out later that they were lied to they'll really not like this.
- Kidnapping and Killing friends. allies. You don't always want to hurt players directly (it's victimization) but if the BB needs their good friend the magic shop owner to make him a MegaFlange of Doom - kidnap him!
- Despicable acts. Heinous crimes - but make sure they have a reason. If the BB destroys an orphanage maybe it's because he really needed a load of child zombies, mindless evil is hard to relate to.
Don't: Steal stuff - especially magical items that the party has, depowering a player will only nark them off. If you -do- want to steal something from the player make it a personal item (heirloom, painting, etc) that doesn't affect their stats/skills and make sure they can get it back.
Because in the end, the BB is there to make the players feel good about what they're doing and drive them to an inevitable showdown - it just needs to take time.
"You've just moved into town and you wanna know the big players. Fair. There's the basic info you're going to get from your usual methods - you're shadowrunners, this is part of the job. BUT - tell me a) how long do you want to spend researching, b) how low of a profile do you want to keep in this, c) how much are you willing to spend? Detailed, fast, quiet, cheap - pick 2."
The trick to good info management isn't withholding information from the players, it's about figuring out what methods and prices they have to pay along the way to get what they want and building the adventure from that.
Are they doing things discreetly? Or are they leaving trails? Will some groups tag them as trouble makers, potential rivals, or good suckers to throw in on a bad job?
Are they pissing people off along the way? Making enemies in a town where they've got few allies?
Are they throwing around a lot of money? Are small time runners looking to jack them? Are big time players suspecting they're just a front for a rival corporation/group?
Are they asking "too many" questions about a particular group and word is getting back?
It's not just the price you pay in time and effort, it's also what the rest of the world thinks of that, and the actions everyone takes in response.
Mechanically - it's as easy as a dice roll. Fictionally, as a Shadowrunner, you're stepping into someone else's mess and maybe you want to step carefully.
As far as playing it out and not writing massive setting stuff, ask the players in return - "What are you looking for? Are you looking for employers? Marks to hack/rob?" and target your answers around that. For some details, on a successful roll, you can turn the question back on them - "Well, 'Uncle Knife' still runs the docks, which is damn impressive in day and age, but he did something that has caused all of his rivals to back off - you only figured it out when you looked at a shipment record from something 2 weeks ago. What was it?"
Best Answer
Well Lithe, I'll take a stab at your little problem as one of my favorite things to include in the game is a bit of moral grey area.
1) You have to remember that most of the time, people will automatically assume that those that work against them in anything but the most passive ways as the "bad guys" and usually even the good guys will do something morally ambiguous in order to make things turn out in their favor. Think ends justify the means. Your "bad guys" could have been doing that. Possibly they have been attacking businesses run by your Patron and in the process have harmed innocent workers or customers. Your Patron just happens to leave out that the store was a front for a drug ring or something. Its less about what your Patron tells the party and more about what he DOESN'T tell them.
2) In order to keep your group from turning on the Patron, the best thing you can do is to keep the interactions with the "bad guys" on hostile terms. Even if they were to capture one to interrogate, keep the captive insulting and spitting in their faces or something. Even the most patient of people will lose it after a bit of that and strike the captive or begin to torture him. Another good point would be to make the party somehow be harmed by the "bad guys". A drive by shooting becuase the "bad guys" have found out the Patron approached the party to do some work.
3)Make the Patron play the part of the victim. Any interaction that the party and the Patron have should be with the Patron imploring them for help or being slightly servile. If the man is older it would help to play the helpless old man. If you are in a situation with the Patron's power showing, say it is simply a gathering of political activists or community organizers. Thinly veiled terms for Mobster, but good enough that, if played right, the Party won't catch on. A charitable organization would be a good cover too.