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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun Missions _ SRM02-01 Parliament of Thieves

Posted by: the_dunner Feb 13 2006, 02:51 PM

This thread exists solely for sharing the War Stories about your character's adventure through the Parliament of Thieves Mission.

Readers should be forwarned -- this thread will be spoiler laden.

Posted by: TimberWolf Feb 13 2006, 10:28 PM

Well, I got to play, and I have to say some of our solutions were interesting.

We took the really long way. We went north, caught the e-way and went through Sioux territory, then cut south into the UCAS. And, of course, some jackpipe got wiped out on his bike. We managed to get away from the Yaks and the Triads by faking them out, then having our hacker take over some poor goomba's Jackrabbit and drive it out of the way. Hehehe. At least we made sure to give him a $10 off coupon for body repairs..

Posted by: SheaDarke Mar 10 2006, 09:11 PM

I am planning on running it for a few of my friends...

But I live in Denver...infact I live in Edgewater...so I guess its nice to see that my TINY little town tripples in size in the next 64 years. Plus having the club denim by where I drive everyday is kind of...confusing...hell its a block away from where I lived until I was 6.

Posted by: Chaldfont Mar 23 2006, 05:34 PM

This was a good intro. I ran it for two of my players last night as their first SR4 game. Two of us had previously played SR1 waaay back in the day. They had help from an absent player's character too.

I had a technomancer and radical eco-shaman. Right after picking up the package, the technomancer hit an office supply place and made copy envelopes for each of the characters. They even shuffled them so that no-one knew which was the real package.

When confronted by the Yakuza and Triad, the shaman tried to bug out on a skate board but was drawn down by all of the gangsters. A huge standoff ensued. Meanwhile, the technomancer hacked the Yakuza leader's smartgun and made it fire just wide of the shaman in order to sow confusion. The Triad opened fire on the Yakuza and the shaman cast Chaotic World on the Yakuza. Then the runners bugged out in the middle of the firefight.

It was funny at the end when they went to hand over the package. The technomancer wanted to get paid for each of the packages! But the shaman handed over his envelope before the techno could offend Chavez. He prayed that it was the real one. We rolled for it... And it was!

Posted by: Horsemen Mar 26 2006, 05:53 AM

I ran this earlier today and it was well received, made an impact with respect to the aspects of the world and the game without being overwhelming.

One of the highlights had to be the car chase that ended when one of those involved became so much road kill. Given their behavior, I suspect this group may eventually develop a M.O. of drive-by carnage.

It was blast and to all those involved, thank you for the fun times.

Posted by: nick012000 Mar 26 2006, 01:52 PM

This scenario can be very easily bypassed by a mage willing to summon a high Force Spirit of Air, ordering it to use Conceal on itself, and then ordering it to deliver the package to the particular mob boss intact.

Posted by: linei Mar 26 2006, 06:49 PM

Ouch. Nice thought.

But probably a lot of scenarios have such a 'quick-and-dirty' solution (mental manipulation spells come to mind). In my opinion it's up to the players to decide if they want to sidestep the bigger part of the adventure and just go right to the finish line without ... well ... playing. Especially in the SR Missions context where the given scenario is all they would get this evening. At least that's the opinion of a GM with a very creative group that loves to find these loopholes, discuss them, and then dismiss them in order to have fun with the scenario.

From a game mechanics point of view, one could argue that sector borders will be patroled for astral travellers like spirits as well. Seeing that the Conceal power can be overcome with enough hits on a perception test, it's not a safe bypass at all. To the contrary, if this spirit courier is intercepted the envelope surely will fall into the wrong hands.

Posted by: nick012000 Mar 27 2006, 01:12 AM

High Force = force 12 = nobody sees anything (except for optimized perception adepts).

Posted by: the_dunner Mar 27 2006, 03:32 AM

I just want to reiterate something that linei said politely, because you seem to be deliberately missing the point:

QUOTE

In my opinion it's up to the players to decide if they want to sidestep the bigger part of the adventure and just go right to the finish line without ... well ... playing.

In MMORPGs there are people called power gamers. Typically, when a new game comes out, they'll hit the level cap in a couple of weeks, then spend months complaining that the game has no content. (While they cleverly bypassed content by using exploits, or by repeatedly doing just one thing so that they could get advance their characters extremely quickly.) Check the D&D Online forums, you'll see people complaining about that at this very moment.

If that's your playstyle, and you enjoy it, more power to you. If you want to avoid the content, and your GM supports you in doing so, then go for it. In all sincerity, please, play whatever way your group will have the most fun.

However, I'm not a power gamer. I expect players and GMs to work together to have a fun game and tell a good story. In an RPG, I expect a willing and frequent suspension of disbelief. Further, I frequently expect that things are going to happen cinematically, rather than realistically -- because IMO it's more fun that way. (Pull out SR4, flip to page 54, read the second full paragraph. That's pretty much my words verbatim.)

While I'm coordinating the program, I'm afraid that adventures are going to reflect my playstyle. That's not a conscious choice, and that's not gloating. That's just a statement of fact. I can only write what I know, and I can only edit things so that they work in a manner consistent with what I know. I promise that every adventure that's released will be the best damned adventure that the Missions Writing team and I can turn out within that context. However, they're all going to be within that context. If that's not something you enjoy, then I'm sorry to say that you probably won't enjoy our work.

Posted by: TimberWolf Mar 29 2006, 11:09 PM

QUOTE

I had a technomancer and radical eco-shaman. Right after picking up the package, the technomancer hit an office supply place and made copy envelopes for each of the characters. They even shuffled them so that no-one knew which was the real package.

We did almost the same thing. Our hacker happened to BE a mobile office supply store, so we were able to pull it off. However, we knew who had the envelope at all times. And yes, we did do a bit of switching off.

Posted by: captainwhizz Apr 18 2006, 11:45 PM

QUOTE (nick012000)

...and the GM could then turn around and say, "the Don was most displeased with this break from tradition, blah blah, yada yada," and the team loses one Faction point with the Koshari and the Chavez Mafia.

Posted by: Ophis May 11 2006, 01:48 PM

Having just finished running this as the first part of "Under Icy Wings" my game over on the main welcome to the shadows forum, I am happy with the adventure. I had a PC with smuggling knowledge and a whole lot of luck on his tests. He took the team down thru the routes the coyotes would have used (the one past 5 by 5 would certainly be known of by smugglers). The party seemed to enjoy it which is cool.

One question though. What is with the hacker encounter. He invites them over for a drink after stopping their vehicles, makes his offer and then if they refuse engages in cyber combat, while sat next to them WTF? what does he hope to achieve? I didn't use it in my run thru as it just seemed dum.

Posted by: the_dunner May 11 2006, 02:53 PM

QUOTE (Ophis)

what does he [Dean] hope to achieve?

Dean's not really capable in the realm of physical combat. If he's able to defeat an opponent in cybercombat, he can force them to stick around at least long enough to talk. If the discussion doens't pan out, he basically wants to incapacitate them so that he can grab the package and take off with it.

He's also an important character in a future mission. This was an opportunity to introduce him early.

Posted by: Gort May 20 2006, 11:47 PM

I just had him hack and crash their car when they refused to talk.

Granted, I accept that if they're actually TALKING to him when he engages in cybercombat, that's just stupid.