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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ There's no where to run!

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 11:40 PM

CHEOPS:

QUOTE

If you just want to talk about straight out running somewhere there are two safe bets in Seattle--the Glow Zone and the Ork Underground.

I almost always end up with a Malcolm Ork wannabe who takes OU contacts and the Glow is easy to deal with if you are anticipating fleeing there. Most cities in SR seem to have an area that makes mages cringe thinking about going in there.

Okay, so you're being persued by someone, somehow... where do you run in Seattle? Let's assume its a car chase for the moment.

1) Where should the player run?
2) What does the GM do?
3) What happens next?

Thoughts? Ideas?

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Jan 18 2007, 11:51 PM

First thought is if you have any go gang contacts, or if you can make it to the barrens. Puyallup I'd say if you could go there. Also depends on who is chasing you. The Star?a Corp?

Posted by: cristomeyers Jan 19 2007, 12:42 AM

Despite being just one city, Seattle is still f'ing huge.

1. The runners go wherever in the Seattle Underground that will hide them. There are plenty of places where, for one reason or another, it isn't worth chasing them into.

2. The GM decides if the people giving chase would continue to chase the runners into where ever the runners have gone. Sometimes it is just better to track them down later than waste time and resources in a high-stakes chase.

3. What happens next? The characters get really paranoid about the people chasing them tracking them down or the chase continues until the runners lose their tail.

Posted by: Kesslan Jan 19 2007, 07:35 AM

Hell in real life you dont even need that much. WHen I was on the streets there were some guys. If the cops were after them they just ran for an abandoned building. Or hell just all the way back to the homeless shelter. Some times they got caught, but youd' be ammazed how often they didnt.

Posted by: underaneonhalo Jan 19 2007, 04:54 PM

QUOTE (Kesslan)

Agreed, most cops are not in their top physical condition and even if they are they aren't willing to run down that dark alley in the bad part of town without a swat team backing them up. Most high speed chases you see are the result of a stupid punk thinking they can out drive the cops, this is a mistake for two reasons; 1) They are most likely better trained drivers than you, and 2) they have air support.

So from this we can gather that your best bet is to get into a bad neighborhood and run. Unless of course you don't know anyone in that neighborhood, you might be better off with the star in that case

BTW this works for corps as well since they don't want the negative press from turning an "economically impoverished" area of the city into a warzone, which is highly possible depending on how ballsy the local gang players are.

Some books that have helped me flesh out Seattle are
The Seattle Sourcebook, which is fantastic, you can get it used on http://www.amazon.com for like $5

Sprawl Sites is great as well, you can get it new from http://www.fanprodirect.com/index.php?sid=&goto=ShowProduct&pid=2035&lid=1148819896&sort=Caption&desc=&mode=&backtpl=SelectProductGroup&backdata=gid%3DSR%26lid%3D1148819896%26page%3D1 for a fair price.

Since I didn't play during 3rd I never checked out the New Seattle Sourcebook, so I can't comment on it aside from I'm probably going to get it.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 05:27 PM

QUOTE

Agreed, most cops are not in their top physical condition

Neither are a lot of runners. Look at the sample characters. There are several without any levels in the skills of the Athletics SG and only average physical stats. Don't put the runners on a pedestal.

Posted by: Thane36425 Jan 19 2007, 06:03 PM

The Seattle area in Sr is pretty large. I can't find it now, but I saw somewhere that the entire area is several hundred square miles. This varies from high tech, high rise downtown, to ritzy single houses, to run down barrens and even a fair amount of wilderness. So, there is a lot of area to hide and run in.

In some published adventures, it was noted that there were places that one could rent as hideouts. These were usually converted warehouses in industrial areas. One thing a team of mine did was to find and abandonned building, ward the place, break into the storm drains through the basement and map a route to an exit a mile or so away. After the run, and it was a very well paying one, they went in the building and escaped. By the time the corp arrived, they found and empty but booby trapped building. A smallish bomb to get them to run followed by another to break the walls enough to destroy the barrier so it couldn't be used to find the mage. In the mean time, the team was was on its way to a smuggleing point, meeting Mr. Johnson on the way, and left the area for a while.

I would also agree that not all runners are in the best of shape. Mages and Hackers have other things to do than spend several hours per day working out and doing cardio. You don't have to have athletics skill to run or climb fences, but it helps. Besides, a mage can run a lot faster than anyone if they have a spirit use its movement power on them (base move x the spirit's force). So instead of 25 meters per turn, with a force 4 spirit, you'd be going 100 mpt. Add Invisibility and/or Concealment and they will be hard to track. Use an air spirit and you can go airborne too.

Posted by: Cheops Jan 19 2007, 06:14 PM

QUOTE (HappyDaze)

QUOTE

Agreed, most cops are not in their top physical condition

Agreed. I usually give my players a funny look when they submit a character with low physical stats and no running skills. "Sure thing, it's your funeral chummer."

The number of PCs I've killed because they can't outrun, outclimb, or outswim something is staggering.

SR Seattle actually ecompasses 3 RL counties in the Seattle area -- King, Snohomish, and whatever county it is to the south (can't remember name but includes Ft. Lewis). That's a heck of a lot of ground to run in.

Another fun way to ditch the cops is submersible step van or plain old motorboat either one enhanced by spirits. There is so much coast line and so many little islands that you can easily hide or even make a dash for Salish territory.

Snohomish county between Everette, Seattle, and Auburn is still largely farms and forest so run in there and hide.

If you are really desperate and stuck in Downtown with no boat you could try the Arcology!

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 06:17 PM

QUOTE

This generally happens most with the hackers and magicians. You know, the only guys that can handle the more specialized types of 'pursuit' that runners encounter. In usually ends up that the group has to "travel at the slowest man's speed" in every medium - and that can be pretty costly.

Posted by: underaneonhalo Jan 19 2007, 07:34 PM

My point was that while some runners can't outrun a suburban soccer mom who jogs every morning, they can outrun "officer Dunksalot" who has trouble keeping his breath while eating half a dozen donuts. And even the cops that can keep up with them will probably think twice about going into the barrens alone on foot, hell most runners should think twice about that!

Really it's all a matter of how bad you want to screw over your players. Do I dispatch officer Dunksalot who's up for an early retirement on medical grounds, or do I dispatch officer Gazelle who runs in the Seattle 10K every year and wins? If the players are having it a little too easy and I think they need a little more of a challenge then it might be officer Gazelle behind the wheel tonight. Did I mention he used to drive professionally?

Posted by: sunnyside Jan 19 2007, 08:35 PM

Actually you should deploy some drones and maybe a spirit (I liked spirits more when they either cost a ton of nuyen or they couldn't follow you from the street into the house). Or even worse a mage ( I think there is a whole thread on that).

Still another place runners might want to try is going across an international boarder. Especially when they're REALLY in trouble. It helps a lot if you have some friends in the country you're going into though. Still at least that pair of metroplex guard Banshees that got scrambled after you won't blast into a NAN nation lightly, and there's a lot more room to run in there.

Another great place to run to is crowds. Think about it. Hopefully your runners aren't wearing their letterman jackets or something on the job and are using some form of disguise. If you can get into a shoulder to shoulder crowd along with a quick change you can lose people easily.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 08:49 PM

QUOTE

they can outrun "officer Dunksalot" who has trouble keeping his breath while eating half a dozen donuts.

The average Lone Star officer is A4/B3/R4/S3 and has no skills in the Atletics SG. This is about the same as many of the sample runners in the SR4 book. I really dislike the assumption that corps - in this case Lone Star - are full of bumbling clowns rather than professionals.

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Jan 19 2007, 09:38 PM

QUOTE (HappyDaze)

QUOTE

they can outrun "officer Dunksalot" who has trouble keeping his breath while eating half a dozen donuts.

The cops that I've met from my ridealong a few months back, several of them were former marines and they're still in their 20's and in prime condition. The guy who I rode with was a former SWAT member from another county and is now waiting to join K-9.
So for the 'officer dunksalot' stereotype while funny at times, sure, you keep that in your game. I like mine to be with more variation like in life.

Posted by: Cheops Jan 19 2007, 10:34 PM

I usually protray my Lone Star as deadly and professional. The corporation makes its money by providing safe streets for its clients. It can't do this by having field officers who aren't in shape.

I've also had several games where entire precincts have gone to war because a PC was killing too many cops. I've also had others where I've dispatched special "Ranger" officers who are the best of the best. Basically they are Star's idealized version of the traditional Texas Ranger.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 11:01 PM

QUOTE

Basically they are Star's idealized version of the traditional Texas Ranger.

In the eyes of a ranger,
The unsuspected stranger
Had better know the truth of wrong from right,
Cuz the eyes of a ranger are upon you,
Any wrong you do he's gonna see,
When youre in Texas look behind you,
Cuz that's where the rangers are gonna be

I had to.

Really.

Posted by: Kesslan Jan 20 2007, 04:45 AM

QUOTE (Cheops)

Well for me it depends. Is it a facility where pretty much nothing ever happens? Having worked for several RL security companies I can say that the standards varry a great deal.

When I worked for Securitas, which btw IS a paramiliary security group in essence. Just not in Canada, I ran into everything from joe blow the student, John Doe the lifer security guard, Bob the guy who's just doing it to earn money out of retirement, and ex-military types. THe latter were almost allways in good shape. Most of the Joe types were in decent shape. But alot of the John types were... well not. Some were, most werent.

Working for Minto (The construction company) they grab most of their guys from Police Foundations courses. I met a few guys who were definatly on the fat side, but they were NOT out of shape. They may be fat, but they could run just as well as anyone else for the most part. And there werent many of em that were. That said however there -were- a few that had been working for the corp a while and were fat lazy pigs. All depends on what they did. Those of us out in the field as it were usually were in pretty good shape. You had to be, 12hr shifts, long patrols. And given that it's all construction sites you some times had to do a fair bit of climbing about.

But the guys back in Coms? They sat on their ass all day for that 12hrs. You'll run into the same damn thing with corps like Lone Star. Most of the beat cops will be in good shape. The ones asigned to a security desk, might be, might not be. Those assigned to an office for years on end probably wont be.

And then it'll vary from area to area. It all depends on what the contract calls for. Alot of security, and I'm sure this is true even in SR. Is just sitting there 'watching' and mostly telling people to piss off when they start to do somethign wrong. While in SR theres ALOT more armed security, I'm sure there's also plenty of places where the training and physical standards are rather minimal.

Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Jan 20 2007, 10:56 AM

QUOTE (HappyDaze)

The average Lone Star officer is A4/B3/R4/S3 and has no skills in the Atletics SG.

Which means the average LS office knows about as much technique as Joe Average - he may be in better shape, though.

QUOTE (HappyDaze)

This is about the same as many of the sample runners in the SR4 book.

And the generic 400BP runner is so greeeeen overall that Ruby Rod would cry.

QUOTE (HappyDaze)

I really dislike the assumption that corps - in this case Lone Star - are full of bumbling clowns rather than professionals.

They are certainly not professional athletes and will most likely lose to any trasseur.

Also, LS is not in the high pay field - it's the grunt work they do, without sponsoring.
Serious talent most likely is drawn to other corps that pay and support better - like KE.

Posted by: hyzmarca Jan 20 2007, 11:40 AM

Am I the only one that has this sudden picture of a Lone Star SWAT team following some runners into the barrens and getting slaughtered by Sin City Ninja-Prostitutes?

Glow City and the Ork Underground are good places to vanish. And Z-Zone is nice due to the heavily armed gangers who may or may not be ninja-prostitutes but would certainly love a cop's head on their trophy walls. A high-speed chase on the Interstate is not the worst idea in the world if you can make it past one of the many boarders. You might even get help from the go-gangs that patrol those roads.
Any extraterritorial building is a good bet to, particularly the large ones. Lone Star will still come after you, but the paper work is such a pain that you can vanish before the corporate security forces can arrest you for extradition.

Just watch out for the The Karate Man.

Posted by: Sir_Psycho Jan 20 2007, 03:04 PM

All you need is some red converse, a steely look and a gravelly monologue as you're flying down the interstate 55 and ninja prostitutes are sure to come to your rescue.