Double Exposure Review
By Dean
- 13 minutes read - 2681 words“Is this the path to Eden?” - Johnathan Tang
Double Exposure is an adventure for 2nd Edition Shadowrun. It is a very story heavy adventure that brings characters in a really unique situation that I haven’t seen in many other adventures. This adventure will put the player characters right in the middle of a new sprung up commune in the barons. What’s even wilder? This organization even seems to be actually growing sustainable food crops. They are accepting anyone with a pulse that wants a better life and is willing to work for it. Sounds too good to be true? Yeah, its Shadowrun baby, of course its fucked.
So, what can the players expect? Ratings out of 5!
Magic | 4 | This story has a lot of magic in it, but it also could be done entirely without it. It will be MUCH harder without however.
Matrix | 3 | There is a chance to do some hacking/decking and honestly, a lot of the lore/information is gated behind it. So bringing someone who can make good and difficult computer tests is highly advisable.
Combat | 3/5 | Depending on the route the GM wants to take this. This can be pretty low combat, but also can put the runners into the most difficult fight of their lives for a variety of different reasons. GMs beware, this adventure can kill.
Rigging | 3 | There are plenty of opportunities to do some chases or vehicle work earlier in the campaign. It’s also possible to have them come up during the adventure.
Face | 4 | A huge amount of this adventure will be centered around talking, investigating and blending in. Face characters will get huge amounts of miles out of this adventure.
So now onto the Spoilers Section where I will walk you through the basic plot and how I would improve it. As well as adding a 3rd edition Matrix Sheafs where applicable.
Spoilers!!
This is kind of a unique adventure in that the entire adventure is supposed to sneak up on the players. The first two parts are beginning adventures that are to be played independent of the main adventure. This has some advantages in that it’s a solid hook which is different from any other adventure I’ve read so far, but it does also strong-arms them into complying. Let’s jump into a recap, it’s a doozy!
The adventure begins with two milk runs (one stealing from Aztechnology cybernetics parts, another one is stealing DNA samples from Doc Wagon). Both are minor hits, easy cash with minimum security. The Doc Wagon one requires a mini car chase against a Nissan Jackrabbit. This is of course all a setup to get your players in over their head with the Feds. Each of the adventures has a secret drone recording the whole thing to be used as blackmail to force the players to investigate a new cult that has formed called “Project Hope”.
From here, Agent Simon Juarez corners the players, showing them what he has and pitches the job. The players are pretty shoehorned in at that point (not to mention the backup, snipers, etc they have just in case the players decide to get rowdy.) Assuming that they play ball (and it REALLY will be bad if they don’t) Juarez explains the situation. This new “Camp Hope” is gathering street people, getting them jobs, and more. This is all well and good except that Renraku is pouring money like crazy. So until they know why, they can’t rest easy. 30k on the barrel, 15k up front per person for the run. So a great payout.
This leads the players to have to join the “cult”. This has them go to an office, fill out some paperwork (which was very fun when we ran it) as well as have them hauled through the Z on a bus with no AC or windows that go down on the hottest day of the year. Once they arrive, its search time and they are THOROUGH. They peace bond anything they can and ensure everything is safe and peaceful like.
Once they are on the inside, the program is exactly what they are selling. Gardens being added to dead and contaminated soil that absolutely shouldn’t bear any fruit. Yet it’s idyllic. The whole place definitely has a cult vibe (and when I ran it, I super amped that up, which I will talk about in my notes section). Everyone sleeps in a large compound, wearing flowing robes, the whole nine.
This section of the adventure goes on for a week. During that week there is a huge clash between the gangs of the Z-Zone and the project Hope people. They pull everyone in the sleeping areas to keep them safe, but boy, if the players use that time (and they should) to do some snooping, they can see some pretty horrid shit. Ant Flesh formed workers tearing gang members into pieces with their bare hands. Shrugging off bullets, knives, car strikes, etc.
All of this adventure builds to trying to earn themselves a place in the inner circle OR making Tang angry enough with them to ship them off to Camp Faith where the Renraku experimentation is done and research being done. That research is pretty grim, like human vivisection grim. Everything culminates in an attempt to either break into New Dawn Environics to figure out how they are getting this magic soil (And a confrontation with a massive toxic spirit) or stealing a laptop from Tang which contains the Renraku research (and a confrontation with Ant spirits and the Queen potentially) information which should be enough for the Feds to move on the camps. Finally, if enough time passes then Renraku will attempt to break in and cover their tracks and Aztechnology attempts to break in to steal Renraku’s data. If it gets to that, then the players will be escaping the fire fight of their lives.
This adventure is really solid. There are so many amazing scenes that can be done and it sets a tone like few other adventures. I, of course, do have several things I’d add and some stuff I’d recommend watching before running Double Exposure.
Things To Look Out For!
Don’t Skip the Therapy Sessions, Lunch, Etc
The meat of this adventure is getting the characters pulled into an unreal situation of being in a cult. Part of that is their incredibly rigid timing schedule for work, eating, etc. This schedule is designed to run the characters down and keep them from having time to do any snooping. This means they will need to come up with lies and solutions to skip these meetings. If ALL of them miss it will alert the others pretty quickly that something else is going on. So at least some of the characters will need to be there. That means they will need to come up with stories, keep to their stories and maybe even come clean and find some acceptance in their actual problems and stories. The hope is that the NPCs can maybe even convince one of them to come clean on something real in their lives.
Characters are disarmed and going in almost naked
The characters journey’s here is that they are brought in and completely disarmed. This makes this adventure incredibly difficult because a lot of the stuff they rely on just isn’t available. That being said, the mages and shamans are more than equipped to help fill in where the cybered up and weapon specialists are disarmed. I added a hidden weapons cache that they could dig up, but they will need to come up with some way of getting their weapons/armor/gear into the compounds if they are going to have good chances of succeeding at their investigations!
The Adventure is Designed to be run over several days
This is pretty unusual. I made sure to let my players know that this would be an adventure where going to sleep and waiting a day or trying to set up something across multiple days was expected. A lot of players I imagine will feel like they are wasting time or are missing because they aren’t expecting to have to wait. Just gotta make sure they understand this is a slow burn.
Characters can accidentally run into lethal threats while exploring
Some of the plot hooks require the characters to make some incredibly dangerous moves during times of extreme stress. I know a lot of my players were hesitant to make their moves when the Butcher’s made their attacks. You definitely need to impress upon them that they may need to bide their time for some things and strike when the iron is hot.
The Spy Game
Four different spies have been sent into the camp. One from the EPA, Renraku, Aztechnology and a double agent for the Universal Brotherhood. This can get pretty complicated to juggle. Honestly, I dropped all of the Aztechnology stuff when I ran it. The other three were more than enough to handle. It also added local color when I ran scenes of the cult gathering, discussing things, doing therapy and things. One of the funnest parts of this adventure is being able to sit the characters down in a situation that no other shadowrun would present. Having them all gathered around trying to keep bullshit stories they are brewing up to keep these “therapy sessions” going.
How To Run A Quality Cult Adventure
Cult Lingo and Tactics
I know for a while cult shows (as my wife calls them) became all the rage in the 2020s. We ended up watching “Escaping Twin Flames”, “Heaven’s Gate: The Cult of Cults”, “The Vow” and “Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God”. Each went into pretty deep details about how people get pulled into a cult, how the cult sinks their hooks into people and ultimately why people decide to stay even when stuff goes bad. I highly recommend watching a few of these if you want to get into the look and feel of cults to make this make a bit more sense. A lot of people throw themselves in and go with this kind of wacky approach. People end up in cults because they want something to believe, have lost something big in their life and need someone or something to fill it in or need acceptance in a way that they can’t get some other way. They just put up with the crazy stuff after they have been in long enough.
Here are some quick techniques cult use and how you can use them in your game to bring your players characters deep into it.
Love Bombing
Few people ever really get time and attention from just about anyone that they need. This is doubly so in the 6th world. Having a group of people show affection (platonic or otherwise) can have a pretty profound effect. Something to consider is having one of your characters that grew up with a rough backstory (and nearly every group has one) have their feelings truly validated. Give each character an opportunity to tell their story (and most will make it up) and give them the impression that people ACTUALLY are listening to them and taking their feelings into consideration. It’s all about flattery, validation and trying to make the person feel seen/heard.
Isolation
This is well established in the story right off the bat. The characters are shipped out of the city, kept behind lock and key and things like cell phones and radios are taken from them. They are isolated and require the good of the commune to continue their well being. This is entirely intentional and will lead to even the most stubborn person “playing ball” if just to eat. Enough of it will wear a person down. That puts the target exactly where they want them.
Researching Targets
One thing the book doesn’t mention but I added and I think most other folks should add too, is doing research on their targets. This is a super common approach to make the cult leader (especially if they put themselves up as supernaturally gifted and hell, in Shadowrun they could actually read minds and the likes) seem like a bigger than life personality. They know things, can connect things or mention shared experiences without being prompted. They may know about the sickness of a loved one or promise healing or well being for a passed family member in the next life. These kinds of tricks are super common and can have a really deep impact on the target if they remain unaware of the ruse. An incredible example of this is in the “Late Night with the Devil” movie. (Spoilers Ahead!) Christou the psychic tries a bunch of cold reading on the crowd and gets heckled as he strikes out. He decides to up his game and use a “hot reading” (researched target) because it will have a huge emotional impact. It devastates and touches the people who he spoke to as they believed he had really contacted their dead son/brother. It’s revealed they signed a prayer card and that’s why he had that information. That small misdirect really was all that was needed to be able to establish a connection with those people. (Spoilers End!)
In Group / Out Group Dynamics
This is by far one of my favorites because it’s the most actionable and will become the most memorable to your party. I still get groans from my group when i use the phrase “Is this the Path to Eden?”. Groups tend to develop their own lingo, mannerism and in jokes. This bonds us together as a group and in general gives us something comforting to lean back on when surrounded by a special group of friends. You can more than likely think of a dozen things that will be a big hit in one group that would be completely lost on another. That kind of bonding sets you as an “in group”. We used a lot of repeated phrases (Which I got from watching all of those Cult Docuseries!). My favorite is “Is this the path to Eden?”. Whenever they ran into something that the cult disapproved it, it was just a perfect line you could repeat incredulously. Consider sitting down and writing a few of these out. I mostly made reference to Eden because a lot of their literature referred to what they were doing was “remaking Eden”. Also cults love to reference Biblical things because it gives them an air of authority or “righteousness”.
The Slow Wear Down
One of the things I did to make this cult danger more direct was to gamify the resistance each player had to the cult’s influence on them. Each day I had them make a willpower roll against TN 4. A single success kept their mind and sanity clear. Each failure began to sway the character over to the cult’s side. If they had 3 failures, they were fully lost to the cult and would need an intervention to get them to leave. This gave each day a bit more importance and gave them the feeling that the cult’s influence and tactics are actually a notable threat.
Final Thoughts
This was one of the best adventures I’ve run for my group. All in all, it took us around 5 sessions to complete and it helped round out a lot of our characters. It also helped forge deeper allegiances between everyone as they got to see what true evil looked like. Ant Spirits are still the boogie man to a lot of my players. A threat they don’t know when they will see again. I wish you all of the luck if you decide to run this. It was fantastic for us.
Want your own copy of Double Exposure?
Physical Copies
Unfortuntately at this time, I am unable to find any PDF verison of this adventure. If someone knows a place to get it, I’d be very interested in knowing!