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Posted by: Dun Fe'Ran Nov 16 2003, 09:29 PM

In light of all the 'last 10 runs' threads and so forth, I thought I'd ask about the most botched run you've ever been on. What was the most disastrous mistake that lead to a failed, or nearly failed run?

Personally, I play a mage and we are doing a detective mission right now investigating the death of our fixer's cousin (this is a favor mission...). After finding our prime suspect, we engaged in a bloody battle, and only barely managed to come out with our lives. We subdued the suspect and brought her to a secure location, but decided to heal up before the interogation process. I assensed her, and found some of the normal cyberware and a tooth compartment. I don't know what I was thinking, but I just kind of shrugged and said, "OK. We'll be back tomorrow to get the info we need." For whatever reason it never occured to me that there might just be something in that tooth compartment. Boy, was that dumb. There was cyanide, and the only thing that prevented her from dying in the night was the fact that the GM rolled about the most favorable body roll ever, and she was merely brought to the brink of death. We very, very nearly screwed that one up.

So, what others are there out there?

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 16 2003, 09:51 PM

I'll let my players have a chance to answer this before I give a shot at it.

~J

Posted by: Lilt Nov 16 2003, 09:59 PM

How about a time that we were going to take someone hostage and interrogate them, then erase their memories of the interrogation using an alter memory spell. First-off; it went without a hitch, we gamma-scopolamine'd the target & bundled them into a van.

Once the GS was having its truth seirum effect, we started the interrogation. As I, the player, go to the toilet; the rest of my team take it as a queue to blast one of the target's legs off below the knee and give the target other permenantly disfiguring conditions. One of them even signed their name on the target using his hand rasors (after, using hand rasors, he won a game of noughts and crosses on the target's chest).

Now that's what I call a botched run.

Posted by: CirclMastr Nov 16 2003, 10:00 PM

Ye gods. Do NOT even THINK about bringing that up J. Maybe if I didn't have a starting drake PC (which are very expensive, as I talked about when DotSW came out), and maybe if any of the other PCs actually contributed something, and maybe if whatever dark ritual you performed to curse my dice had failed, it would have worked out. And it wasn't SO bad; everyone got out alive, after all.

Now then, my very first SR session, THAT was bad. Three very bad characters trying to get through Supernova from First Run. A toned-down Supernova. Very toned-down. You know the group is ill-fit for any task when you get through a facility by having the physad kick down every door in the place because it's literally the only way to get through.

Posted by: Dogsoup Nov 16 2003, 10:06 PM

I think one of the few runs we really failed miserably was some written scenario ,where a masked dragon comes up to us and makes a demand.
Our (or was it mine?) answer were somewhere along "stfu, n00b".

I get insta-gibbed, the rest of the group managed to make a panicked escape in a slightly roasted van and the dragon proceed to ruin some minor neighbourhood.
All in all, it was fun.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 16 2003, 10:38 PM

I may or may not say anything, but I can't help it if, say, K1tsune happens upon this thread...

~J

Posted by: Adarael Nov 16 2003, 11:59 PM

Going to Iran to investigate the elf decker Leonardo.
Told we'd meet backup there.
Get to hellhole that is Amaz.
Run away from tanks, kill many bedoins.

See archeological dig site! Yay!
See men there. White men, speaking what appears to be english!
Oh! We think. This must be our backup!

Walk up, try to shake hands.
Get narcojected, foam-bound, and thrown in latrine.

Nope. They were from Saeder Krupp. We escaped, but couldn't get the foam from off our hands and feet. So we had to hop away from the SK guys, through the Iranian desert, and hide from tanks.
THAT sucked.

Posted by: snowRaven Nov 17 2003, 12:21 AM

Adarael - TOO funny!

Posted by: OurTeam Nov 17 2003, 03:37 AM

A runner, paranoid about the other runners betraying him, records on his desktop computer all the details of the run. A description of the Johnson, the job, the runners, their vehicles, their safehouses, everything. He programs the desktop computer to automatically send the details to Lonestar if he ever fails to check into the computer for more than 6 hours. He checks into the machine regularly as the run proceeds during the day.

That night, two runners try to drive on the freeway in Seattle even after the GM gave hints and warnings about many freeways being overrun by gangs at night. They run into a gang and limp back to the safehouse two hours later. The paranoid runner then goes out onto the freeways AFTER hearing of their troubles, and by himself. A gang takes his vehicle and leaves him unconscious by the side of the road. DocWagon picks him up, the medic decides there is no physical damage, and instead of taking him to a hospital they let him save a load of dough by allowing him to sleep it off at the DocWagon station.

He wakes up in the morning, long after his computer has placed its call to Lonestar.

He confesses his mistake to the team. They call the Johnson with the info. He cancels the run and asks the team to cancel the runner. They do.

Posted by: theodorik Nov 17 2003, 03:59 AM

I have a lot of characters who never earned karma. Seriously, half my characters never get through the first run, or if they do, they suck so bad they never get played again.

Here's a wonderful scene. The GM comes back from school after 4 months of no shadowrun and plans out a neat little campaign. Our first mission was to steal BTLs from a local gang and give them to another local gang, both reside in the Barrens. We had a Dove Shaman (look it up, I know none of you have every encountered them before) in our party who wouldn't let anyone kill anyone; Total Pacifist. We decide to stealfully climb a ladder leading up to the top of a building we know contains the shipment of BTLs we're trying to lift. (its their headquarters, we found out later). A simple PADLOCK (not a Maglock) keeps the entire team from getting inside the metal roofhatch. No one had wireclippers or anything that could silently remove the PADLOCK. The GM's little brother decides to open is using his troll's Ugly Stick (a massive quarter staff) by beating it repeatedly. The sound echoed across the Barrens, so much for stealth. After making so much noise we kinda just froze "maybe they didn't hear that" style. After 12 rounds the rooftop was being sprayed with bullets. Grenades followed, and our team was sent to the ground 30ft or so below. The rigger never rolled any dice; campaign over. And then we all made Other Game characters.

theo

PS Dun Fe Ran, we should start a "what do you do when you've run out of leads" thread. We might need it.

Posted by: Fortune Nov 17 2003, 04:09 AM

Posted by: Sahandrian Nov 17 2003, 04:12 AM

This was my old real-life group, in the single most idiotic series of actions I've ever seen any group in any game take...

It was the last (as in 30-90 minutes each) of a series of 8 information-gathering runs against various small corps, and the one that I, the GM, thought would be easiest. They needed to get into a small company that was a minor subsidiary of a local Ares branch. The security was light. Three guards at a lobby desk, some cameras, and a security force in the breakroom upstairs who would get called down when necessary. I played up the fact that these guards had been there all night, were getting tired, and were not really the brightest guys around. Oh yeah, and I think one of the guards was a bit drunk, too.

They could have easily faked their way in with what their Johnson supplied them, if not for the rantings of the (absent that game) adept. The adept was incredibly paranoid about Ares. He refused to take any jobs for or against them, and the mere mention of that corp would send him into a 20-minute rant about them tracking down the team and killing everyone.

Thus they went in with a decker, street sam, mage, and troll. The mage and troll stood there, supposed to be distracting the guards or something, but the mage's player was a ditz and the troll's was half asleep. So the sam and decker go up and invent a half-plausible story, and they're escorted towards the elevators by the drunk and the idiot. The computer rooms were downstairs, thus the elevator.

Now here's where it just got stupid. The sam noticed a camera, and being incredibly paranoid, decided to pick up the guard and carry him in front of his face to hide from the camera while the decker walked behind him. I let them off easy, said the guards just decided they were crazy people and they should just let them do their thing and go away quickly.

It was only their third game, after all.

The decker got his info in a few minutes, and they headed back up. Then the sam notices, to his shock and horror, that the camera is pointed at him when the elevator door opens! He quickly grabs the guard and repeats their entrance scene. This time the guard starts complaining that this was just getting weird, and the players decide this means they've been found out. So the decker shoots out the cameras, the sam clubs one guard over the head with another, the troll cuts off the head of a third, and the mage picks up the two unconcious guards and slams them into a wall with Levitate, repeatedly, and hard enough to nearly kill them.

Then they gun down a couple of wageslaves and the first-floor janitorial staff, realize they missed a guard who was calling the sec force upstairs, shoot him on the way out, and run away as the security guys are just getting off the downstairs elevator.

All this to get some legal information that the Johnson was having trouble finding. All they had to do was ask...

Posted by: k1tsune Nov 17 2003, 04:16 AM

Look. It was a run so bad that Jon (Kagetenshi) docked me karma for not killing the damn drake afterwards.

More later.

Posted by: Shockwave_IIc Nov 17 2003, 04:17 AM

Posted by: thunderchild Nov 17 2003, 04:35 AM

We had been paid by a pirate group to steal a bunch of ships from Philidelphia harbor (thanks blackjack) we were to steal the 5 biggest and meanest ships and take them out to international waters, hand them over to an up and coming pirate group who made their money from raiding other pirates.

Anyways, our plan was to sneak onto each ship and run a system diagnostic, grab the ones that turned out the best, and take them.

It all went to plan untill we got them out to international waters and the pirates checked the hold, they were all loaded with drums of hideously nasty chemicals, most of which were leaking or rusted to shit. they kept their money and just sailed away. leaving us in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, low on fuel, and in ships that with a tad of bad luck, had the potential to explode at any given moment.

we left the game there for the evening to resume it later. The gm asked us to have new characters written up by next week. I.e we were fucked.

Next week everyone turned up with new characters, except me, i had a plan!

We took all the fuel out of the boats and loaded it into the smallest ship, stripped it of its guns and put them into the spare cargo room and took it to england (the gm said the currents were against us to get back to the UCAS) The gm said now you have to fly back to the UCAS, i had a better idea, we cut a deal with a local big time gangster.

We got a rigger of his, a few hot spellslingers, a diesel tanker, and a shiteload of hazmat gear in exchange for one of the ships AFTER it had been emptyed

We took the tanker back out to our floatilla (which was still there) filled up all the ships, moved all the crap VERY CAREFULLY into the worst of the 5 ships, set its autopilot to sail into the poluted north sea and to drop anchor in the middle of it.

We let the gangster have 2 of the combat ships if we could borrow them, the tanker and its contents for a short mission.... hunting down the pirates and making them VERY VERY unhappy.

While its technicaly a salvage when the gm said "make up new characters" i was not letting one of my favorites die.

Posted by: Digital Heroin Nov 17 2003, 05:13 AM

The Run: A secret society known as the Skytale (pronounced ski-ta-lee) Club invites the runners to act as their agents in enticing a full on mob war in Everet between the Irish Mafia and the Yakuza. The aim is to bring out violence in the streets, which will bring an increased Lone Star presence thus lowering property values in the area. The Skytale Club wishes this to happen so they can begin purchasing warehouse and waterfront property through their various members.

The Target: A Yakuza underboss whom they are to kidnap, so the Skytale Club can set up a false Mafia ransom demand. They have four possible locales to make the grab: at the casino which the underboss owns, at his upscale condo, at his sister's tea house which he visits daily, or en route between any of the previous locales.

The Crew: A rigger hottie who drives a highly modified Ares Citymaster with a mounted Light Naval scale mortar; a Psyad Trog who's completely close quarters, and weilds a pair of stun batons if he feels like going non-lethal (Killing Hands: Deadly); an ex-Ganger Troll mage; an ex-Spec Ops sammie; a former Companywoman; a ninja-wannabe Sniper; and a drunken Irish Weapons Specialist. The crew is linked via battletac gear, so they should be in constant communication.

The Setup: The runners decided that they would ambush the Yak when he was leaving his sister's tea house. The sniper set up on the roof of a small store across the way; the Rigger parked five blocks down for overwatch; the Weapons Specialist played backup driver with a truck loaded to the gills with guns and ammo; and the rest of the group took an unmarked van and used it to block in the underboss' limo.

And thus it began...

Now I'll give them credit, they had a workable plan. They'd also done the most legwork I'd ever seen out of this group to set things up. All good things, however, must come to an end.

The first boneheaded move of the event would have to be acredited to the group's mage. As the Yakuza underboss and his bodyguards (5 of them) exited the tea house, the mage assensed the lot of them. He discovered through this that one of the five escorts was highly wired, but neglected to tell the rest of the group.

The goal of the run is to kindnap Mr. Underboss, so they planned accordingly. The first action went to the Sniper (who incidentally had the highest initiative because something possessed him to wire himself with level 3 WR). He'd loaded in a clip of tranq darts, and he took aim, and fired on their target. Now, this would have worked out, except he didn't do his research right. He'd planned on a one shot, he drops scenario - which would leave the rest of the group open to slaughter the bodyguards if they wanted - but when he told me the tranq he was using I got a chuckle. He'd loaded the darts with the equivalant to a Rating 4 Tranquelizer Patch. That's right kiddies, one opposed test and the Underboss shrugged off the effects, and was alerted by the nice happy dart sticking out of him that something was up. The Sniper tried again of course, but once more to no effect, and this panicked the rest of the runners.

Full blown combat erupts after the van pulls in to block of the Yak limo from driving forward, and it's lead by the Psyad Troll leaping from the side door, and promptly having to roll an assload of body rolls as he's opened up on by three Yaks. Sure, he was drawing fire away from the rest of the runners, but at the same time he was ruining the backup plan, as the ex-Companywoman was going to gas grenade the men the Troll was now entering melee range with. A gun battle ensues, and during it the Sniper switches clips. Now he doesn't decide to use normal rounds, no, he slots depleted uranium rounds. I was thinking overkill, but then he revealed his intent. He switched to thermal imaging, and started scanning the interior of the tea house, so see what was going on there. When he noticed several figures rushing toward the door, he opened up and proceeded to waste some curious patrons. So much for keeping to just a mob war, now innocents are involved.

Meanwhile, in backup land, the Rigger's sensors pick up the rapid approach of a Town Car on her end, and when she checks it out, she finds it to be full of Yakuza backup. She relays the info down the Battletac (the first actual use of the system during the run), and word gets to the Weapons Specialist, who's been chomping at the bit to hold back this whole time. He takes it as his cue to join in the party, so he grabs up an assualt canon from the back of the car, and braces it out the window lance style (can anyone see where this is going?). Just as he's about to peel out, another Town Car passes him on by. Now he's all grins as he puts the lead to it, and skids out of the alleyway. Problem one for him is he's got a Car skill of 1, and because of his driving situation and haste, I required a Control Test. He actually does manage to get the car in check, but almost drops his assault canon out the window, which distracts him. It distracts him just long enough not to notice that the Town Car he was chasing has just become a smoking hole in the ground. You see, our Rigger she got a little itchy in the mortar finger, and fired a brilliant (it'd best be tossing 18 dice into it) shot to obliterate the Yakuza backup that was approaching from the side opposite her, and to leave a sizeable crater in the ground. It Weapons Specialist looks up just in time to see the aftermath looming in front of him. Not only does he fail, but he botches his control roll. Can anyone guess what happens when a beater of a car loaded with ammunition and explosives hits something at relativly high speeds? For dramatic purpose, I let the poor guy get off a one liner before he met a rather gorey end. His last words word: `Fiddledy Dee Motherfuckers, I'll see you in Hell.` Then baby go boom.

Back to the main fight, and we've got not only a highly wired Yak and several bodyguards running rucksaw over the runners, but a backup team as well. I let it slide when the players had to cry foul that the rigger planned on firing a mortar round into the mix, but things were bad, really bad. In the end there was a pile of dead Yaks, including the target (who couldn't flee because the sammie wasted his driver early in the combat), two dead runners, and a load of Lone Star on the way.

The final groanworthy act came from our friend the Sniper. You see, he just happened to posess a Platinum Docwagon contract, so he decided to use it as an escape plan. After quickly stowing his weapons, he stabbed himself in the leg and put in the call. This pretty much landed him in Lone Star's lap as the only captured runner, because DocWagon got to thinking that a guy with a stabwound in his leg up on a roof across the street from a brutal battle was a bit fishy.

Needless to say, the runners were never hired again by the Skytale Club. They did manage to duck the Yakuza though, and the Sniper weaseled his way out of charges. All in all, it was a real drek hits the fan of a run.


The reason I refer to the Sniper as a Ninja wannabe is another story... which comes with it's own brand of madness...

Posted by: CirclMastr Nov 17 2003, 05:16 AM

Posted by: Dun Fe'Ran Nov 17 2003, 05:21 AM

Posted by: Shockwave_IIc Nov 17 2003, 05:27 AM

Posted by: Modesitt Nov 17 2003, 06:49 AM

This is the story of how one group I was involved in went.

The characters:

The Medic: The medic. He has a rifle and a pistol.
The Sammy: He's a german ork street sammy. 'Nuff said.
The Mage: He's a mage, a shaman of Gecko. He likes illusions and mind spells.
The Decker: He's a decker. 'Nuff said.
The Face: He's a face. 'Nuff said.

How the first run went.

The first run was pretty simple. We originally had a total of...I believe 8 players, but the other 3 had scheduling conflicts come up and lack of interest and such. So we were left with this group. Anyways, the job was to steal 10 nice sedans from a superfreighter and bring them to a warehouse. The pay was 125,000 nuyen(Because it had been for more people, yadda yadda). Our first step was to get our hands on a car carrier. We go through the phonebook...Bob's Truck Truckin'. Perfect! We go in at the dead of night...

The Medic and The Sammy split into one group. They're going to go to a car carrier and check it out. The Decker is off doing something else related to the run. The Face and The Mage decided to go in and get the keys from the main building. The Medic and The Sammy sneak towards a car carrier, sneaking past a dog house while they go...

And we find out that The Sammy has no sneaking. He's defaulting to quickness.

Well, a few rolls later he fails and the dog wakes up.

The Medic pumps the dog full of Narcojet. The Sammy promptly unleashes a 3-round burst into the dogs head from his suppressed assault rifle. Because, you know, that was REALLY NECCESSARY. As this is happening, The Face and The Mage have run into problems. There's a door between them and the keys, but they can see it through a window. So The Face draws his silenced pistol and tries to shoot out the deadbolt, waking up Hick Bob, the owner of Bob's Truck Truckin'.

Bob owns a shotgun. Bob keeps his shotgun loaded. Bob started shooting. He missed repeatedly, as he was blind firing. The Mage got the bright idea of looking in at Bob through one of the holes the shotgun had made to get line of sight. Suddenly, half of the Mage's neck is gone. The Medic and The Sammy run to their rescue as The Face pumps rounds blindly into the wall. Eventually, The Medic arrives, stabalizes The Mage, The Sammy Arrives, empties a clip point blank into Bob's face, and they drive off. Before they leave, they cut off The Mage's Docwagon wristband and throw it away.

The Medic just so happens to own his own medical clinic, so they drive The Mage there. They unload him and The Mage gets to work on Trauma Surgery! All modifiers told, it's a TN of 6. By the time it was all over, The Medic had rolled 21 dice and gotten not one goddamn 6. The Mage died on the operating room table. The Medic went about harvesting his organs, a gas came out of his chest, and The Medic passed out. When he woke up, the body was gone.

He immediately went and got high. Depending on the rules one went by, he would have become a drug addict. It's not like it would have particulairly mattered, as you will find out later. Anyways, after he got high, The Sammy arrived, helped clean up the blood, and that was that. The rest of the run went pretty smoothly. They got the cars without any further trouble.

One week later, a troll arrived at the front door of The Medic's home, a troll from Lonestar. He's got a photo of The Medic and is asking to question him concerning the death of Bob. So they get to chit-chatting about stuff, when The Troll starts getting mean. In fact, he uses a fear spell on The Medic. That's when the troll uttered the immortal words.

"I AM HERE FOR A GREATER CRIME: THE DEATH OF FIDO!" The Troll pulled out a PETA badge, slapping it over his Lonestar badge. The Medic began desperately blaming The Sammy for the deed.

The illusion wore off and it was in fact The Mage, who had come back to scare the shit out of The Medic as punishment for letting him die. Hand of God is great isn't it? The Medic socked him in the jaw and it was off to the next run our group of merry men went and to the more immortal of the two runs this group experienced called...


9/11: 2063

This run was again fairly simple - Go into an office building, smash up the 3 underground floors that happen to be secret labs, and get out. But we have to be REALLY thorough on how we destory the stuff.

We came to the conclusion that the best way to do this would be with explosives. The Sammy happens to own 130 kg's of explosives, so we use his explosives. Seeing as how we have blueprints of the place, we were able to figure exactly how much we'd need to destroy all the lab equipment. It came out to 100 kg's. We put all of the explosives in 1-kg's satchels and wired them all to a detonator. The plan was to plant all of the explosives, then leave and remotely set them all off at once. BOOM! We buy a cart and off we went.

We enter the office building in the day time. 9 AM. Monday morning. Guns a' Blazin'! I didn't mention this earlier, the other part of the agreement was that we had to shoot everything that moved in the labs, ie the scientists/researchers. Security guards! WOO HOO BANG BANG DIE MOTHERFUCKERS DIE DIE DIE! We're on a roll! We get to the elevator and damn, The Decker has to hack the controls. So we sit around and begin jerking off. Then the BIG BOYS began appearing. Heavy security armor. SMG's. The works. We begin to get shot up. Everyone's wounded. Something just landed in front of the elevator! OH SHIT! The Sammy fires his underbarrel grenade launcher at the enemy.

He rolls all 1's.

The GM rules that there was a flaw in the grenade itself and it blows up in the launcher, blasting the small device back and hit the rest of us with some sharpnel. The Sammy is obviously down for the count, but his bulk saved most of us. The Decker manages to hack the controls and we begin closing the elevator door. The Face realizes that they might take The Sammy alive yet, as he's a little bit outside the door. So he finishes The Sammy off with a shot in the face.

They go up one floor, The Face grabs two kg's of explosives and the detonator, The Mage randomly pushes buttons and they make a run for it. The plan is to get to a window, shoot it out or blast it out, then jump out it. To the nearest window, with the building plans in hand, they went. Along the way, they get in a brief scuffle with security guards, but they blow them away. In the process, a civilian is also killed. The Mage also comes up with a plan for a distraction.

He uses Physical Mask. Cries erupt from the crowd! "WHAT IS THAT?" "OH MY GOD!" "CTHULU!?"

The Decker looks back and utters the line "You suck at Elder gods." They get to the window and place the explosives and the GM asks for a TN 2 int check. We make it.

Do you remember what I said about how everything was wired to one detonator? About how they were going to dramatically leave the building and blow the labs up as they went? All 100 kg's, including the 98 kgs on a cart that is going up the main elevator in a sky scraper at 9 am on a monday morning, are wired to one detonator. The Face pushed the button. BOOOOOOOOOOM!

They drop off the side of the building, then split up. The Mage and The Medic went for the cars and began trying doors while The Face and The Decker went for the fence. The Face and The Decker climbed the fence, disappearing into the alleyways. Meanwhile, The Mage and The Medic found an unlocked car and went off. The Mage used another physical mask to make them look like businessmen, himself a japanese one, The Medic a german one. They get to the gate out and are stopped. The Mage begins babbling at them in Japanese, The Medic in German. When they don't get any results, they floor it out of the gate and to freedom!

Osama would have been so proud of us.

Epilogue: The Face took the money up front to the phillpines. The Decker went underground and came back in a later group. The Medic and The Mage were caught and went to pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

Posted by: k1tsune Nov 17 2003, 07:02 AM

Posted by: OurTeam Nov 17 2003, 07:48 AM

The runners stole a T-bird, and after 15 minutes of flight are far from any landing strip. That's when they notice the blinking "low fuel" light on the dashboard, and remember all the fuel drums they passed while sneaking onto the airfield. They had to land in the NAN wilderness and call someone in Seattle to sneak fuel out to them.

Posted by: Ghostly Enigma Nov 17 2003, 08:09 AM

Umm hey J should I go and spill the beans or wait for K1tsune to do it

Posted by: Talia Invierno Nov 17 2003, 04:39 PM

Posted by: moosegod Nov 18 2003, 01:00 AM

contact yes. Runner, no.

Posted by: Fortune Nov 18 2003, 01:21 AM

Posted by: Dim Sum Nov 18 2003, 02:16 AM

Some years ago, I was running an introductory SR campaign for a bunch of newbie players as a favour to a friend of mine in London.

Four players: two physical adepts and two samurais - all came from the hack-n-slash school of gaming and weren't confident of trying out anything else (like deckers, riggers, mages/shamans, etc.), which was cool. I was just going to run them through a simple retrieval job for them to get a feel for the mechanics and mood of the game.

The run was a simple break-in into a Lone Star vehicle impound facility. All four of them were provided with genuine uniforms and passes to get into the facility. They were to retrieve a particular car and just drive out. The two adepts went in while the two sammies decided to stay in the fairly large guardhouse at the gate (the only entrance/exit to the facility) "to keep an eye on the cops there and ensure that their escape route would not be cut off. The guardhouse was octagonal, had a circular control console island, in the middle of which sat two cops.

The adepts botched when a cop surprised them trying to break into the car (instead of just asking for the keys) and they attacked the cop (instead of talking their way out of it). Alarms went off. The cops at the guardhouse still had no reason to suspect that the sammies were anything other than legit cops till one of the sammies draws an SMG and let's one of the cops have it. The other cop immediately dived over the console and returned fire. The sammie with the SMG gets hit and proceeds to get bogged down in a raging firefight around and over this island console inside the guardhouse.

The sammie then notices that his buddy is not helping him and discovers why: the other sammie is crouched down trying to assemble his sniper rifle out of his bag because that's his highest firearm proficiency!!! He finishes assembling the rifle just as his buddy geeks the cop. The adepts have meanwhile managed to get the car going and are driving out under a hail of fire - by the time the car reaches the gate, it's so shot up that it makes it about 5-10m out of the facility before the whole thing collapses. Other cops start surrounding the guardhouse and firing tear gas in. The wounded sammie with the SMG makes a run for it and gets gunned down. Sammie with the sniper rifle refuses to surrender so the cops just pour in more tear gas and flashbang grenades before moving. The adepts escaped with serious wounds.

There was a stunned silence after all this happened (took about 20-30 minutes of play from start to finish) before one of them said, "Kewl. Let's do that again."

Posted by: Morphling The Pretender Nov 18 2003, 04:38 AM

We've had some screw ups, but this was the only one where anyone actually died, rather than getting pulled out by his buds.
-------
Mission: Go into an Ares building, retrieve a expiremental non-deadly weapon, copy the associated files, destroy the original data, find a particular scientist, capture him and leave.

Runners:

Changling Mage
Otaku
Human Mage
Assassin
Interrogator
Sammy
Vehicle Rigger
Other Guy (don't remember him exactly)


Plan:

Assassin (being less kick ass than the other 4, he thought) gets job at electronic store in public mall in building. On break, he gets Okatu in and he does his work. Once he does his thing, Changling Mage, Human Mage, Interrogator and Sammy go in under magical disquise. They mop up, sneak around, search the floor, get the goods, and get out. Rigger waits in an ambulance to take them out.

Problem 1: Changling player didn't show up. The other mage didn't have any decent illusions. So, they had to get business suits and have the Otaku send the elevator around where they need to go. So, they get radios and suits for a few thousand more; it's an acceptable expense. That, and we didn't have a way to get the guy out if he was out cold. No biggie yet.

Problem 2: Paranoid of blowing his cover, the assassin, when put into the storage room his work for the day, worries that if the Otaku comes in, he might not get into the back. Fortunately, a few early morning calls re-established the plan; send the two guys to lunch, then call the Otaku when he watches the storefront. So, the plan moves back a few hours. No biggie.

Getting the Otaku in goes without a hitch. Cameras looped, slaves under control. The men get to the elevator, suited up, and looking quite professional. When asked of thier purpose, they say they are expected upstairs. DING, elevator opens.

Problem 3: They split up. Interrogator and Sammy go up to the scientist's living quarters, to make sure nothing important is up there, and see if he is there. Human Mage and Other Guy go down to begin clearing out the floor.

The interrogator and Sammy find nothing useful, no one they want to find, and head downstairs.

Problem 4: The Mage and Other Guy hit the 10th basement floor, and are asked for ID. The mage replies with, "Are you sure you aren't confused?" And tries to cast Mass Confusion. He totally screws it up, and no one is confused. The guards open up a can. Other Guy uses the Hand Of God instantly. The Mages takes a serious and dives behind the rim of the elevator wall. They manage to shut the door, and frantically call the Otaku to send them one floor up; they aren't going to give this up yet. Meanwhile, Interrogator and Sammy were heading to down the 10th basement floor. They Other Guy places a timed explosive in the elevator, and when they get out on the 9th, he tells the Otaku to send it back down. Forunately, he also has the foresight to send the Interrogator to the 9th as well.

Blam! Death. Kewl.

Problem 5: The Interrogator cannot roll a damn success. Rolling 7 dice, sometimes 14 if he was feeling adventurous, he gets ONE guy with his Ruger over the course of a few rounds. He takes a serious wound and a moderate wound. That's right, 9 boxes. He finds the mage and the Other Guy. The mage gets cross-ventilated before him, and the other guy was already dead. Interrogator and took this as his cue, to say, "I'm getting out." He calls the Otaku to open the door to the elevator. With a massive quickness and Hydralic Jacks, he springs into the elevator, and escapes further injury. Sammy makes it in right behind him, just as the doors close.

Fortunately for the interrogator, he had a Doc Wagon contract, and they are waiting for him. Leaping for his life, he plows into the back of the open REAL ambulance, as Sammy hops into the fake one.

The otaku walks out of the back, and gives the assassin a look. They mutually shake heads, and leave separately.
-------
(ala Richard Dreyfuss)

Asimov, the interrogator, survived his injuries and escaped the Doc Wagon hospital to elude Lone Star. Though he never officially left, he made himself scarce when the group needed his specialty most. He made himself quite unwelcome because opf that, but grudges are not worth harboring towards your commerades.

Jackson, the sammy, recovered quickly, but soon met a conflict of interest with the other members of the troupe. Rather than risk being killed by 6 people who he knows are ready, willing and able to kill him, he went underground. No one has heard from him since.

The vehicle rigger (whose name fails me) kept the ambulance, but never used it again. He make an interesting team with a Troll weilding a bat, but gave up the career to begin street racing. He was later killed in a head on collision.

Johnny 'Strange,' the changling, was chided for failing to do his part of the mission, even though it was his plan initially. He apologized, and was forgiven. He gave up running after falling in love with a Policlubber, and they both changed each other's views on life. They were murdered in a home invasion.

Tarou, the Otaku, still works with us. He's made friends and lost them, but he's endured the great hardships better than the average 12 year old.

And the assassin, well, that'd be me. I'm still here.
--------------------
like the bone under my skin
like actors in a photograph
like paper in the wind

Posted by: Maxwell Silverhammer Nov 18 2003, 04:43 AM

Heh, A runner team I was on Helped FastJack get into a facility, to get a data steel. Then we tried to doublecross him and steel the data for ourselves when we found out how valuable it was.... Never double cross a God level decker and fail.

We didn't get that data, and hadn't even made it to a bolt house before every Lone Star Officer, and corp Goon in seatle was looking for us for crimes ranging White collar Corporate embezzling to, operation of a kindergarten prostitution ring.. The caracters were quietly retired to a supermax detention facility for the next 500 years or so..

Posted by: TinkerGnome Nov 18 2003, 04:50 AM

Geeze, who thought it was a bright idea to doublecross FastJack?

Posted by: Traks Nov 18 2003, 08:13 AM

Well, everyone have heard story of my players killing guard with 10 shots in the head

So gotta write another run they botched.

Players:
Full Mage - mediocre player, nothing that catches eye
Sammie - combat monster with heavy weapon
Face - the only player who tries to plan, and no one in team listens to him
Two more fighter types.

They receive task to take out yakuza warehouse, which they use for shipping in and redistribution of narcotics. Ok, team drives near during the night and wait for yakuza bus. Then all players scream: I shoot the bus, including heavy weapon guy. So much for subtlety. Heavy weapon guy and mage run to burning bus and steal each couple of packets with "goodies". While another player throws grenade in the bus to destroy it completely.
Then they drive away (everyone forgot that they should take out warehouse not just bus) and call to boss to say that job is done. After hearing that their job was very different, they drive back (Lone Star was bought to arrive only in morning) and create "great plan". Team divides and drives from both sides to attack the warehouse simultaneously. Now, first team tries to approach from right side to warehouse and of course their car is under fire. They drive further back and start shooting with grenade launcher. Meanwhile team two arrives from left side and near corner start talking loudly via cellphone. Enemies got hearing amplification, so surprise surprise - grenade rolls under Face's feet. Face loses leg (well, it was deadly wound, but I let it slip this time) and mage - which did not suffer from blast being further away, refuses to heal him - You know, he is all bloody, I will not dirty my clothes. Then he proceeds to corner. Yakuzas have packed everything and are leaving, driving near the corner where mage is. Team 1 shoots another grenade, which misses bus (extreme range) and rolls near the mage. Mage survives and yakuzas leave. Then ambulance called by mage arrives and takes wounded heavy weapon guy, Face and mage.
But mage forgot that he left his car with narcotics near this mess. So, early in the morning Lone Star arrives and puts security on their doors, interrogating them. Also they let know that their chances to survive are very low if they do not cooperate. Team gets out mage (they thought he was valuable enough), and in ruckus Sammie leaves by himself. The only one who stays is Face (you can't run without leg, can you?) and gets perforated by yakuza shortly after that.

Posted by: Sahandrian Nov 18 2003, 03:31 PM

A short one I just recalled. The rigger/gun bunny Phaeton was at fault here, though he blames me to this day.

The adept, the shaman, and the NPC gunslinger (along to keep them in line) were trying to get into a small Novatech facility using Levitate, Invisibility, and whatever roof access they could find. Phaeton wanted to go back to his place and get his guns first, but the team was in a hurry, so the gunslinger told him he could try to catch up later.

But he ran into a few problems on the way back (lots of red lights, etc), mainly due to spending the meet arguing with the shaman and her good friend the NPC decker. Don't annoy deckers. So, by the time he shows up, they're already on the roof, and he doesn't want to spend the time looking for a way up. So he parks his bike up the street (I already talked him out of parking it in front of the target building, in an alley next to the building, or in an alley across the street from the building) and heads down there.

He then proceeds to break into a side door using the grenade launcher on his Ares Alpha.

Now, normal guards he wouldn't have had trouble with. But they knew that a hit on this facility was expected. And I had also been hinting the whole time that a very well-known and dangerous mercenary team (the Devilkin, a human mage, two orks, and two trolls) had been hired to watch the facility for the time being because of this.

He winds up in a firefight with one of the orks (the far, far more dangerous of the two) and between the constant yells from him and some stupid decisions, he nearly gets killed. Though, I only the ork opponent single actions, reduced the ork's initiative, and gave Phaeton extra dice and bonus (nonexistant) TN-reducing mods (it was an online game so I was rolling for everyone), so in the end he won, barely.

The rest would take a while to explain... But in the end he wound up spending the rest of the run sitting in an alley.

Posted by: Kesh Nov 18 2003, 05:05 PM

We were playing Queen Euphoria, and at this point we were hired to kidnap Euphoria from her penthouse suite.

Of course, the place is heavily guarded and locked down tight. Guards everywhere, bulletproof glass, even reinforced walls to prevent someone blowing their way into the penthouse. The place was a fraggin' vault.

Eventually, we decide the only way to get in was by disguising ourselves as security guards. The trouble started when our sammy refused to go along. I can't remember if it was an honor-code thing, or if he just didn't feel like sneaking around. Anyway, he separated from the rest of us and went straight up to the penthouse. Basically knocked on the door, tried to grab her and got knocked cold by the bodyguards. They locked him in a room while waiting for building security, because of how cybered he was.

In a way, that worked for us. We proceeded up to the penthouse, and claimed to be the building security unit! Unfortunately, whoever was doing the talking failed their rolls, and the bodyguards called our bluff. So, things get ugly, shots get fired, etc.

That's when the street sam wakes up and hears the commotion. He busts down the door with his enhanced strength and then makes the announcement that will haunt my dreams.

"I pull out the grenade I keep in the hidden compartment of my cyberleg, and throw it into the room!"

...

Yes, a grenade inside a reinforced room. I've never seen the 'chunky salsa effect' used to such a degree in my life.

By the rules, everyone in the room was hamburger, including Euphoria. The GM decided to be nice though, and ruled that the floor gave way under the pressure, so we were all just in the hospital for several weeks instead of dead.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 19 2003, 07:02 AM

Well, we've got a wonderful story, but it seems that the main subject doesn't want me to share.
Anyone else have any thoughts on the subject?

(Yes, whether I tell the story or not, I will make you suffer )

~J

Posted by: Dun Fe'Ran Nov 19 2003, 08:57 AM

OK-it's really starting to pique my interest now. If we were to vote, I'd say spill the beans.

Posted by: Zazen Nov 19 2003, 09:10 AM

Posted by: Lorka Nov 19 2003, 11:57 AM

Well it was a semi botched run last night, but worth mentioning here i think.

The team have been doing some complex stuff lately, working for Vampires and Bioweapon terrorist, so I thought they should have a 'break' and do a easy run.

I choose to start them on Brainscan (I am more or less convinced they will choose the wrong side in the conflict later on).

As Brainscan is a official product i will put spoiler tags on.

The team for the night:
Dwarf Mage: He is a bit of a coward, but often save the team with a spell or two, have a tendency to think everything can be solved by using Control Thoughts.
Samurai Decker: He can deck, fight with a sword and use skillwires for everything else.
Sniper PI: Find a roof top and snipe everything that moves. His motto is: "every run have a fire-fight and a run in with Lone Star" - and it often comes true when he is on the team.

Posted by: tisoz Nov 20 2003, 01:05 AM

Posted by: k1tsune Nov 20 2003, 01:08 AM

'ey J, got the logs? I'll tell it, I guess, but I want to make sure I get every perfect little detail. *grins*

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 20 2003, 01:14 AM

Got it here somewhere. I'll send when I can find.

The hyping is more placeholding than anything else. I'm massively busy, but I don't want to forget about it.

~J

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 20 2003, 01:21 AM

Log sent. I may have to post it on the SotSW site sometime.

~J

Posted by: CirclMastr Nov 20 2003, 01:42 AM

Posted by: Shockwave_IIc Nov 20 2003, 01:50 AM

Sorry it's become one of those things that people are expecting now, and besides as mentioned the guilty party can't vote.

Posted by: OurTeam Nov 20 2003, 01:55 AM

Please don't post it. It would be unkind.

Posted by: Tanka Nov 20 2003, 01:56 AM

Oh, do tell, do tell... We all want to hear.

Well, on to a semi-botched run... Let me recall the details...

Players:
Face: Hot female human, Cha 6, Tailored Pheremones, the works.
Sniper: 'Nuff said.
Dwarf Rigger: Duh.
Little Mage: Recently graduated from MIT&T. Has little-to-no common sense.
Meat #1: Troll with about .01 Essence.
Meat #2: Another Troll with about .01 Essence.

We're hired by Corp A to hit an SK facility and steal a nuke from them. Building has four guards and two sentry guns around the perimeter, which is also a very high electrical fence. Building contains no less than a few more guards, a shaman, and... The kicker... A free toxic spirit. Ouch, huh?

So, Little Mage sits down the day before and summons up an Air Elemental. Brings it with him, and the Sniper sits back and lines up the guards. Ping, ping, ping. One left, Sniper can't get a shot. The one notices Little Mage as he, Dwarf Rigger, and Meat #1 and #2 are Stealthing up. Note: Meat #1 specifically said not to try to sneak unless you are really good at Stealth. Little Mage doesn't listen. (Precursor: We've been through two mages previously, both of them have "lost their heads," so to speak, so #1 guesses that the third will be killed, and the wound will originate from the rear) Guard fires grenade, nails Little Mage square on the rear, thusly fulfilling Meat #1's guess. Air Elemental goes free, decides to have fun and asks Face if she wants help. Face says yes, Air Elemental merges. Face is now überFace with upped stats and everything. Face goes, beats up remaining guard, enters building.

Free Toxic enters Shaman, enter fun here. Long battle, Meat #1 uses a "God Chip" and manages to throw a knife and hit the Toxic Spirit Shaman. Gives überFace opportunity to kill/banish Toxic.

Now we grab the nuke, Rigger plugs in to plane that's so well-placed, and we take off. Next we know, mist is coming in through a few cracks. Mist forms, one banshee. Still some mist. We tell the Banshee to frag off after she tells us to land and give the nuke back. Three other vampires form. Ensue battle, dusting of one Banshee and one Vampire, and the two Meats being turned into Dzoo Noo Qua (Oooh, snack!). Insane Dzoo Noo Qua escape and grease four guards, then find a place to comfortably excrete all the cyberware and bioware they had in them.

Eventually, we make it back to the J, get some congratulations, a meal (Meats' being specially edited), and another job.

Meat #1 gets bonus karma for predicting the roll.
Little Mage fragged.
Sniper leaves.
Face keeps Air Elemental in exchange for two karma from each of us.
Dwarf Rigger keeps plane.
Meat #1 & #2 are now Vampiric Trolls. Both have permits for Heavy Security Armor that has been tinted and sealed to protect from chemicals, and now also sunlight.

Meat #2 is me.

The campaign has yet to finish.

Sorry for the broken English, just trying to get the major points down as quickly as possible.

Posted by: CirclMastr Nov 20 2003, 05:10 AM

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 20 2003, 05:45 AM

You do realize that if I don't post it you'll probably be far more memorable in relation to it than if I do, right?

~J

Posted by: FlakJacket Nov 20 2003, 05:48 AM

No! We demand all the - really embarrassing - details!

Posted by: Dun Fe'Ran Nov 20 2003, 06:38 AM

Posted by: sidekick Nov 20 2003, 07:50 AM

the run down.

Brick: cybered human goon who could give a Troll a run for their money for being tough and strong. (my char)
Buck Shot: A Ork with a cyber shotgun and a lot of bioware
The Man of Mystery: amnesia character, new character.
The Elf: A non cybered, non magical elf who had a flame thrower.

Our group was in need of a little capital for a big run we were under taking. We were really strapped since last run was a bust, we got captured by KE, destroyed their facility killing many and ending up with a big bounty on our heads. So we contacted our fixer for a kitty cat run.

In Snomish(sp) a farmer was complaining that something was killing his live stock. We drive out to investigate in my Americar. We chat with the farmer, who happens to live in little trailer. He mentions that his neighbors had been missing and so had some live stock. We go to check out the neighbors, and sure enough, no sign. We then decide to set up an ambush for the critter using a cow. Something comes towards the cow and we give chase. But it manages to elude us in the woods, especially after some group members fled in terror (the Fear critter power)

It's night time, but luckily most of us have low light or thermo. While we watching the bait we here gun shots. We rush back to the Farmer's place to see that door ripped off the hinges. We take a look inside and find the remains of the farmer. We decide to loot the house and get outta here. While we are lotting we hear a sound outside. We spring into action quickly and fire multiple shots in the direction the sound... thoroughly venhilating the teen age kid who was knifing our tires as a prank.

We hop into the car, decide to try to drive back toe Seattle with the flats. But pretty soon we go off the road. As we are walking, the creature jumps from the bushes and attacks us (turns out we were fighting a Wendigo). My character's first action is to punch it. Turns out the brass knuckles I had found on the run previous were the magical Brass Knuckles of Love. Now smitten with my character Brick, the Wendigo casts Influence to make the feeling mutual.

So, my character leaps into action to save his "beloved". The Elf dodges my punch (throwing in all his combat pool since out of game he knew the brass knuckles's effect) and then shot me with a taser. He rolled great and I rolled miserably for soak and took a Deadly Stun. But my Pain Editor kept me on my feet. So he hit me again. What my GM failed to tell me was that I had physical damage from the previous run (I guess he assumed I never turned off my pain editors over the course of multiple days ) Another Deadly Wound puts my character out for the count. And No one decides to spare a trauma patch on him. They manage to take out the Wendigo with the flame thrower and steal a car to drive back to Seattle.

On the drive back, Buckshot pisses off the Man of Mystery. The Man of Mystery's response? He takes the group to his safe house, goes out for a smoke, then calls Lone Star for his reward on the bounty. The Star shows up, and the remaining members decide that they can escape into the sewers by shooting through the floor. Too bad they shot a gas main and died in the resulting explosion. As for the Man of Mystery, turns out his amnesia involved him being on the run from the Star as a wanted mass murderer, so when he went to claim his reward he was whisked away never to be seen again.

The only core group member who survived was the Hobgoblin Sammie, whose player declined to go on the run so that he could read through Cannon Companion instead.

Then there was the Boat Run, be we won't talk about that (less a botched run and more a botched GMing).

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 20 2003, 08:15 AM

Y'know, screw it. Dun Fe'Ran's right. I'll summarize in the morning, but the transcript of the session can be found http://www.sotsw.net/RunFromHell/.

~J

Posted by: Shanshu Freeman Nov 20 2003, 09:17 AM

What can we learn from these botched runs? What do they all have in common? (Aside from the obvious, "We didn't think it though, were rushed, tried to solve the problem with guns, etc, etc."

Posted by: Dim Sum Nov 20 2003, 09:55 AM

Bug City ... team gets sent in to extract subject A. Within the first 10 minutes of the campaign, the team gets cornered by a swarm of bugs in an old warehouse housing a road tanker belonging to a smuggler making runs into the city to sell gas to the inhabitants. The tanker is dripping from a leaky valve and the mage, after spotting this, prompt declares that he's going to fireball the pool of leaked gasoline. When everyone screams at him not to, he relents, says he has a better idea and proceeds to fireball the gas tank itself.

... BOOM! ... Everyone declares Hand of God ... end of campaign.

When asked later why he did it, the mage explained that if the bugs thought everyone was dead, they would leave ....

Posted by: Sahandrian Nov 20 2003, 10:55 AM

Posted by: CirclMastr Nov 20 2003, 05:10 PM

Posted by: Sahandrian Nov 21 2003, 01:10 AM

That practice seems to have been inspired, in our group anyway, by our Neo-wannabe adept from long ago and another GM. He had two small SMGs, four machine pistols, four Predators, and two AVS's hidden in various places on his body. And I think there were a pair of light pistols for an emergency, too.

Posted by: Deschain Nov 21 2003, 08:50 PM

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 21 2003, 09:11 PM

Oh yes, for those who read our run log, there's one little detail that tops the whole thing off. PM me if you want to know, 'cause there's no way I'm letting the people involved find out.

I seem to be using that smiley a lot on this thread.

~J

Posted by: Siege Nov 21 2003, 09:14 PM

Posted by: moosegod Nov 21 2003, 11:36 PM

For using such a pathetic piece of...

Posted by: Sahandrian Nov 22 2003, 03:06 AM

This was the same guy who submitted the 1 billion nuyen cyber-adept he created without using any rules (hoping our newbie guest GM wouldn't reject it) and the gun adept who could kill a western dragon on his own, by the way.

Both of those are somewhere on the previous forums.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 22 2003, 03:09 AM

Oh god. The Munchkin thread?
*Shudders at the memory*

~J

Posted by: Jimmy_the_Fixer Nov 28 2003, 06:26 AM

I started my campaign with the players being double -crossed by a decker freind they met through their old fixer, so for protection they went to the mob for help.

so as a well paid favor they asked them to go intimidate the head lawer at a law firm at the edge of town. the lawer hadn't paid some debts and they wanted it now.

the lawer was a really influential contact so they wanted to keep him alive, but just have them scare the head of the firm, beat up a few no-name, lower paid lawers, and kill whatever security that got in their way.

so the group walks in at about 3:00PM, convince the gaurd that its okay for them to be there, and proceed to his office.

they get there without any problems (they just walked through), get to his secratery, and in the middle of her asking if they have an appointment, the dwarf street sam beats her in the face with a stick.

she's knocked out, so the dwarf busts down the door, and starts the intimidation process.

the mentally deranged adept we had in the group comes in and starts hacking at the secratery, and screaming about how much he's disgusted at society.
then he walks in to the room with the lawer and the dwarf, sees whats going on, and decides to help.

the adept starts by stabbing the guy in the hands while going for a panic button under his desk (they were instructed not to touch the lawer) then intimidates him thuroughly.

from the screaming and the ruckus, the security guy notices something wrong and knocks on the door outside the waiting room/secratery office.
the team notices and shoots the living daylights out of the unfortunate rent-a-cop.

by doing this they have left the adept without supervision, which he then rips open the lawer and spreads his blood all over the office just in time for the dwarf to run in and see the mess.

the group runs away and the mob gets word of course and forces them to do a series of dangerous jobs for no pay to work off the insane/stupid crap the adept pulled.

Posted by: Panzergeist Jan 20 2004, 12:25 AM

Oh come on you wusses, tell us your stories. Everyone's done something dumb sometime. I haven't botched a shadowrun yet, but the one campaign I played in D&D 3rd edition, my necromancer character turned a fallen PC into a zombie, which pissed of the rest of the team, who had hoped to cart him to a city and shell out major cash to resurect him. And in real life, I once had trouble opening a packet of ketchup, so I decided to burst it rather than tearing it open. I smashed it with my elbow, getting ketchup all over my jacket and the table. Think I was 11 at the time.

Posted by: Siege Jan 20 2004, 12:28 AM

Welll...

This was a d20 game, but...

We had a psychic character who managed to get set on fire four or five times by fellow party members over the course of a month.

He ended up using it to justify his change to pyro.

-Siege

Posted by: Shockwave_IIc Jan 20 2004, 01:14 AM

Well i ran this game once for a friend of mine (the older folk may rememeber the lvl9 initaite physad that the debate about knuckular combustion was about)

Before the ran began she was called by a contact in a mega corp and asked if she wouldn't mind helping out on the off chance if they needed it. Being a friend and all she agreed.

Now this was the run, one of the staff from a company has been extracted and was being held in an apartment in Auburn. The job since the company didn't want the employee anymore the character in question had ot find and kill him. Ok so a little tough, find where he is and get past the SR team that had him.

K. So she found the building, using fiber optics and basic survallence she got the rough jist of the layout and where people where. So after a brief firefight three of the team dead, the target and a very savy Physad hide in the kitchen (the physad had during the firefight open the kitchen window and had fired out a grapple line to the roof but had run out of time to start climbing it).

Looking into the kitchen seeing the window open with the grapple line hang out our Pc swears and run to the roof to cut them off. mean while Physad and the target can't belive their luck and slip out while she is gone. so they escape to a safer house. And call their johnson for help.

Our Pc is now kicking himself realising that he's been fooled. (ho ho ho how i laughed). Starts to evac the area. Gets a call from his friend that wanted him on stand by. And is asked if she can help protect someone till one of there teams can get their, sure no problem he say's, then the penny drops.......

He gets to the new house and after 20 questions the Physad lets her in (disguise skill for ya). Now i discribe to the PC that if some is in side and discides to seal it, it's very difficult to get in without breaking something (ie the reinforced, barred metal door) a bit like the last place but only needing one person to be in.

So our Pc has a few options:
1, Sit and wait for the corp team to show up (30 mins) and gain a brownie point off his contact.
2, Shoot the target and the Physad and concoct a story.

Guess which our PC chose? option 2. She shot the Physad then the target. then shot herself and sat their hanging around for the corp team and his contact to show up.

For 3 months that PC was dead, then i buckled and let him hand of god it. Besides the restart of the rest of his characters life was ammusing...

And yes the he/she thing (Player is Male, character is Female)

Posted by: Panzergeist Jan 20 2004, 05:16 AM

I can't understand that last post at all.

Posted by: Herald of Verjigorm Jan 20 2004, 05:49 AM

Posted by: Panzergeist Jan 20 2004, 04:39 PM

Ah, conflict of interests. Funny.

Posted by: Accel Jan 20 2004, 05:31 PM

Me thinks, i can share a story gone really bad.

Our team was hired to retrieve a scientist who had been kidnapped years ago by our employers rival corp, and his research data. Our employer found out that he was attending a conference at the Cougar Mountain Ressort Hotel. Since there were a lot of top-notch scientists from nearly every AAA and AA interested in this field of expertise, the hotel's own security has been beefed up considerably.

Nevertheless, we were able to have a water elemental burst a pipe in the hotel, to "borrow" an fully equipped van from the plumber's company the hotel usually contracts with, and to have our (nsc) decker intercept the hotel's phone call.

So we infiltrated the hotel successfully, then disguised our mages as waiters and while the others repaired the damage the mages went to the suite or decker identified as the target's. The mages, using endoscopes, send the "bodyguards" dreaming, and met the scientist who was willing to return to his former employer under the condition we rescued his family as well. We transformed him into a toad and put him into a box previously masking-warded by the casting mage. The team assembled quickly and, having repaired the damage, left the compound.

Security detected the sleeping guards and the scientist's missing but we shook off the pursuit. Not risking anything we (except one of the mages who drove the van to leave a false trail) escaped the van through a hole in its floor into the sewers at an intersection. We had arranged that a chummer of the team met us a block ahead.

So we travelled the sewers to the meeting place, as we suddenly heard noise. It sounded like footsteps, but coming from all around us so we hurried. At a crossing of tunnels we saw them, a group of three coming from the left, another group of three coming from straight ahead and a last group of three caught up from behind.
Ghouls.

We, two infiltrators, my combat mage and the scientist who rarely left his lab where clearly outnumbered. Yet we were armed and armoured and since the groups ahead were relatively close to each other so I gave them a warning to back off. As they ignored me, still closing in, I threw a chain lightning at them (own creation, similar to ball lightning, yet different spread pattern.)

I failed miserably. Even karma did not change our luck. But it was not only me. Everyone (except the GM!) seemed to have crap on his hands or dice.

Result: Infiltrators dead. Scientist dead. Finally all ghouls dead. My mage on the run from a Johnson really pissed off. Scientist's family dead, since scientist was suspected of desertion.

And the merc who was waiting....., well, he still does.

Posted by: hobgoblin Jan 20 2004, 06:58 PM

Posted by: Kalibar Jan 22 2004, 04:19 AM

Well I'm new here, but I got a couple stories about some botched jobs...actually more pseudo-botches. It seems the one player I've GM'd for had a series of bad partners who screwed things up good, and left him with task of saving their ass and the run.

Here's one example:
Characters 1(C1): ork unarmed/speed Physad(I. Reflexes 3, Killing hands L) -from the Sioux Nation, a Wildcat washout who was to moral and good natured for special forces

Character 2(C2):A Cyberninja(Skillwires, 4 slot chipjack, Wired 2, smartlink-2, cybereyes) with amnesia and distinctive cyberware who thinks he's hunted by the UCAS CIA...Oh and a new toy the Ares Laser III

The characters were hired by an employee of Microdeck to retrieve Project Plans stolen from his office before anyone at the office new they had been stolen. The employee had downloaded a copy of the security footage before wiping it.

So the characters had the faces of the runners who took the goods, and had to track them down before they handed them off to their Mr. J.

After some legwork and greasing a few palms, the two discover the meet will take place outside the Tacoma Ferry in the early morning. They get there a few hours before the meet and set up a stakeout. Ork sees two armored vans parked 2 blocks down the street. Cyberninja notices someone on the roof across the street on Thermal, zooms in with vision mag-a sniper.

Ork-boy decides to sneak around the building and climb up a fire escape behind the sniper rolls stealth(6)-botches. He's greeted by the barrel of a Barrett right in front of his face his face. Mr. sniper tells him to lie on the ground and keep his hands on his head, and starts to radio to his buddies. Ork-boy decides not to listen and tries a leg sweep, feeling generous I let him roll reaction to surprise the sniper reaction(11)-high roll of 2, the sniper rolls a 13.

So sniper shoots him(no called shot), and luckily for the ork only got 1 success on 7 dice. Orc rolls body(7)-botches again...Orc is dying.

Sniper goes back to edge of roof and lines up on Cyberninja, Mr. Ninja notices and backflips over the bench he's sitting on(Dodges first bullet), second bullet misses. Ninja-boy fires at one of the vans called shot to the fuel tank-Serious damage, then turns and fires at the sniper(rolls three 10's, an 8 and a 5)-dead sniper. The other 6 members of the Johnson's Team start to get out of the vans, firing at the "Ninja." He ends up with a moderate wound, he fires another shot at each van's fuel tank(Rolls a 47, a 9, and a couple 6's)...kaboom. No more opposition.

The ninja runs to the building finds the ork with 6 boxes(out of in the physical overflow, slots Biotech 5 and stabilizes him...then drags the ork out of there. Heads to his street doc. So although they did not get the goods they did wipe out the Johnson. They even caught up with the runners the next day. Which involved more bad rolls and bad decisions by the orc, and some good planning and legwork by the Ninja.

Posted by: Luke Hardison Jan 22 2004, 04:56 AM

Ah, my team and their first campaign. I belive it was the third run, or at least the third night of the campaign.

They were hired by a ninja clan A to give backup numbers for some small hits on a competing clan whom we'll call B. (considered suicide, but they didn't know that). On the other side, unbeknownst to the rest of the team, the assassin that had been killed on the last run (by a team mate ... long story) was back in action al la GM magic (I didn't like him having to redo a character in the middle of mid-terms just because one of the other players acted like an ass). But, the assassin has amnesia and won't recognize the team ... in an attempt to get them back together, hoping the team would recognize the assassin, they were sent to the same place by different people.
An old chinese man that ran a natural foods shop in Chinatown had spotted some ninjas (clan B) on the rooftops a few nights ago. So clan A hires the runners, with whom they now have a pretty decent working relationship to use the man as a starting point to track down clan B's secret meeting place. Clan B hires the assassin to kill the shopowner; they know he saw them and don't want him talking. The assassin is better than I credited him and the team arrives as the assassin is already in the store, but positioning determines that they never wind up seeing each other. They start questioning as he watches (not recognizing any of his teammates), and the shop owner bolts out the back. As the bumbling group chases the shop owner, tripping over each other and trying to squeeze three elves and a troll out one little alley door, the assassin glides out the front and into the alley, catching the little man with one quick shot just as he manages to turn the corner away from the main group. The assassin then disappears into his truck while they're looking at the body. Ruined my whole plot hook, but that's how it goes .

So later the group is meeting back at the burned out shop a few days later (they torched it as they left), and the troll is being a jerk. In a moment of humor, the cat shaman levitates him up to the roof. Never one to take a joke, the troll pulls his assault rifle out from under his coat and starts threatening them with it ... which of course means people screaming and running in the streets for panic buttons, and the Star on the way. He storms off and leaves the team there, but they ignore it as a small loss and go ahead and take off to check out the potential hiding place for Clan B that they have ferreted out.

Some very nice roleplaying takes place as the face and shaman discover a group of teenage ninja wannabees and sweet talk them into telling them a bit of what they've discovered about Clan B. That should have been it, and it was really ending smoothly despite the horrible, horrible start. But the troll decided that he was missing out of the fun, so he heads back to the building they were checking out, and I quote, "As fast as my truck will go."

"You know that will attract attention, right?"

But he doesn't care, so he winds up in a large car chase, since he won't pull over for the star and he's hauling down the streets of Seattle at max speed. There's helecopters, a roadblock ("What do you mean my runflat tires can still be hurt by spike strips?") Long story short, the shaman was listening to Lonestar radio traffic and knows what's going on, so she sends a city spirit to swoop down and carry him away after he crashes intentionally into one of the LS cars in the roadblock. He would have lived if he hadn't tried to reach for his pistol after LS dragged him out of the car, but it's amazing what 17 SMG's with gel rounds and held actions will do to a metahuman body. The spirit swoops in just after the rounds hit, carrying a quickly dying troll back to the shaman. Shaman tries to heal and fails (hard to head a deadly wound on a .01 essence troll), face tries first aid and fails, so on with the trauma patch, which finally manages to be successful.

Then the realization sets in. Two slightly built elves in the middle of the night in the rough part of china town. One incredibly heavy, cybered troll that just escaped death at the hands of LoneStar a few blocks away. Sirens getting closer and closer. So the face (played by my wife, bless her heart) gets a great idea.

Face: "I call Lonestar."
Hey, it's her first or second game.
Other players: "WHAT?!?!?!?"
But it's too late. By the time the team realizes what she's doing, she's on the line with the dispatcher. Rapidly realizing her error, she does a reasonably smart thing and wipes the cellphone clean while leaving it sitting on the troll's body, piled on the street corner.
Shaman casts Physical Mask and the two elf females become little old chinese men and scuttle away to the tube to make a fast getaway.

Turned out alright, minus the dead troll. But he was really asking for that one. Now, whenever anyone is about to do something stupid, one of the group members will chime in with, "Or ... we could just call Lonestar!"