Hey guys...
I am running a 4 hour session tonight and I was toying with an April Fools theme.
I had thought about letting them play some of the city's more colorful NPCs, but I'm not sure I like it.

Any ideas?

Johnson hires them for a very special run.
When they go to extract the target, he says "April Fools" and an MCT Security Team opens fire on the runners.

You could always steal my idea of kidnapping Goofy from DisneyLand.

mind you, goofy is a social adept in disguised power armour.

Then once the party is "dead" they wake up in a testing facility. It was all a dream/alter memory/simsense.

Blackberry Cats. Always fun, especially when they start using their Compulsion power for things like cans of tuna, or scratchings behind the ear.

Seriously did that one time, a rather large package (so it could have an air supply for x amount of time) was to be delivered. Of course the cat wants out. And of course the players can't resist. Especially when they do get it open and find the cutest widdle kitty in the whole wide world! Yeah, not much, but it made for a nice filler session when half the party was absent and I needed to do something with those who did show.

Robotics expert in my game, actually. He liked kids and went in costume once a week on his "Working Day Off".

Not that my group did any legwork or research. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

Did they crash through the gates in a pimped out step van, open fire on everything in sight, end up laying waste to the fairytale castle, almost killing Goofy, and taking Minnie too because they figured they could get some extra for her?

*shrugs* i'd have left it out and cared for it even without the compulsion power being used on me . .
i am like this with pretty much all kitties ^^

. . i guessed O.o

Flash & Smoke grenades disguised as soda cans in a variety of trash cans to simulate a terrorist attack, causing everyone to retreat to the underground bomb shelters. They conned/shot their way through the front gates to their waiting off-road vehicle (For driving on the streets, go figure.), and were chased by customized Jaguar Sports Cars. The secured Goofy properly against magical searching, but forgot his RFID Tags.

Then the lawn at their suburban safehouse got up and started beating the building.

This being LA, the Johnson got the important parts on 'Trid and has all the rights to the footage.

Hell the LA setting in general is a good place to run an april fools run, (and I say this normally running in a slightly less star struck LA). It's completely topsy turvy, where instead of worrying about how to sneak in to a facility, you have to worry about showing your best face to the camera and making sure to negotiate enough of a broadcast delay that the opposition doesn't get to use your feed as a mobile security camera tracking on you.

Underground bomb shelters. In Disneyland.

Only in Shadowrun......

Um, only IRL. DisneyLand was built during the height of the Cold War. Think about that for a moment.

Actually they're real, Disney was built during the cold war, so their are underground escape tunnels with blast doors in case of an attack. They just aren't publicly acknowledged these days (at least if some of the more interesting speculative fiction writers I enjoy are to be believed)

EDIT: Ninjaed by CanRay

0_0

Learn something new everyday.

Basically the maintenance tunnels under DisneyLand (Which are quite extensive) are supposedly built above any standards one could name for anything but a bomb shelter. DisneyLand wasn't likely to be a direct target for the Russians (They were aiming for Military/Logistic/Political sites after all, not civilian deaths like terrorists.), so they work just as well.

I will confess, this is heresay, and some common sense (Again, built in the '50s and '60s, and upgraded constantly.). I had heard the stories of the bomb shelters before reading them in fiction (Possibly the same authors as Raven), but never got the chance to talk to anyone to confirm or deny the claims. I live in Canada, I've been to DisneyWORLD (Other side of the continent) once, that's it. And I was a kid then. (Ironically enough, during the Cold War!).

Damn, there go the memories again...

"Grandpa's having one of his 'trips' again..."

@CanRay Would the book in question feature an ex Navy Seal and his private army?

As far as Disney goes, getting real information on their plans is actually proving more difficult than I would have guessed, as far as I can tell there are only generalities available on the internet.

That said there are a few interesting points of consideration. First, considering Disney hires ex-NASA employees to help design it's roller coasters, who do you think they hire as security forces, in costume or not? Second, shortly after 9/11, Disney was able to get congress to pass legislation making the low level airspace over the Disney parks a 'No Fly' zone. Finally, the best article I could find on the subject of Disney evac plans and security: http://www.femf.org/education/dis99syllabus/gardner.htm

Food for both RL and Shadowrun thought.

One of them, yes. My guilty pleasure. But as I said, I heard about it before. (And I want an M60E4.).

And that link outright mentions the "Security Shelters". Considering when the site was first built, what do you think they were securing people against? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) Not that hard a stretch.

Heh, yeah the description of the E4 in the (4th?) book was great, can't wait for another book in that series. Definitely a guilty pleasure.

No Fly Zone?
Does that mean Disney has SAM or FLAK in there?
Else, how do they plan to enforce this?
What good does a no fly zone do in this case?

Enforced by the US Air Force I presume. As far as why, well hell I'll use the book plot since it works, how about terrorists flying a crop duster plane loaded with a binary nerve agent over Main street during the parade? (Strictly speaking the book was for the florida one, but same shit, different location for the LA location).

I'm a civvie puke and I can think of a dozen reasons to not want anything flying over a major theme park with Terrorists running around looking for virgins in the afterlife. The one mentioned in the novel is a really good one.

Which reminds me, I have to steal those plots one of these days.

Have them do a run for/with/against the Scatterbrains.

You guys are thinking of Disney World with underground tunnels. Disney Land does not have any.