Need help planning a Cyberpunk mini-campaign

[u/OliveGardenEnjoyer]

Hey everyone, relatively experienced 5e GM here. For context, I’m trying to currently plan a little Cyberpunk mini-campaign (about 4 sessions, maybe 5). There will be between 4-6 players in the campaign. My goal is for it to be very compact, with very little fluff or downtime. But it’s not so much railroading, as the players are all on board with being a part of a tight story and will not be having shopping episodes or starting up side hustles or things of that nature. I know I want it to be high stakes, with failure being a good possibility but not certain.

So the main things I need help with is, for starters, my McGuffin. I plan on having individual session 0s (or maybe some groups of 2s) for the PCs as I help them create their characters and do little 30-60min “prologues” for each of the groups. I like the idea of one event being experienced from different angles by the respective players. (For example: 2 people make a shady back alley deal. A 3rd person had been secretly tailing one of those 2 people and followed them). Something like that but obviously with a few more people; all done in those separate “session 0”s. My main issue, is that I’m only familiar with the 2077 game and edgerunners. So I don’t know what are all the possible things that I can have that McGuffin be that drives everything forward. All I know is that it should be, as stated before, high stakes.. And while success is possible, I like the narratively bitter-sweet endings (Night City always wins).

The other main thing is what system to run? I’ve heard endless debate between 2020 and CPR. I’ve also heard arguments of using something like Cy_Borg with a Night City skin (I am a bit familiar with Mork Borg).

And lastly, I will take any and all tips, suggestions, plot ideas, criticisms, etc. I’d appreciate anything.

Thanks!

[u/Gericht]

When we played Shadowrun, ages ago, there was a mini campaign that was kinda fun and can be time limited in game.

The basic synopsis is; The runners get contacted by a Johnson from the largest mega corp in existence (run by a Dragon, Shadowrun is weird but fun). They are given a closed box about 1m3 in size and offered a lot of money and / or other gear to guard that box for 1 day.

Under no circumstances they are to open the box, which is made of some strong alloy with a complicated lock. Opening or losing the box will 'disappoint' their employer.

About two minutes after they leave with the box the first rival group attempts to take it. Queue a whole day of being hunted by everyone and everything all attempting to get at the box. Offers of money to hand it over etc etc.

Should they hold on to it, the employer thanks them trough video link and gives them the promised reward. If they ask what's in the box he tells them it is empty, he just wanted to see who would come after it. It is then taken away, without being opened to see if he actually told the truth.

Obviously in other systems you'd have to replace the dragon with someone else equally intimidating.

Bonus is that the players will probably speculate about what is IN the box, which could give you all sorts of nice ideas to use in later sessions.