I mean it! My players need to stay out of this thread. Massive spoilers await!


















Anyway, I'm running the On the Run adventure from the adventure book of the same name. My players have an aversion to using their contacts as a first resort for some reason, but they found out that Nabo was the orc they needed to relieve of his commlink through Matrix trawling and confirmed his identity with a contact. Because something had happened earlier in the day in Blimey Estates, I figured I'd let off on the pressure and schedule Nabo's goodbye concert for tomorrow, to give them some time to plan, after I informed them that his commlink had a connection fault and so hot sim hacking it by remote would not only be impossible, attempting it would induce dumpshock.

Nope! They decided to steal it then and there; so I decided that Nabo was at the concert venue (the abandoned warehouse) with his old gang, overseeing the set-up in person, basically as a way to have one last good time with just the boys. Nobody from Shangri-La (I decided he not only signed on with them, but Ari Tarkasian was his contract manager, due to the law of conservation of NPCs,) was there with him. My players come up with the following plan: The Cyberninja and his Ninja Bike will be rendered invisible by the mage (on top of the cyberninja's already-impressive rutherenium outfit,) and will travel to near the concert site. The Bitter Old Man (Bom,) will create a distraction from his truck, upon which point the Ninja will sneak in and relieve Nabo of his commlink, taking it right off his person.

I'm kind of aghast at this, and I say something to the effect of "Wow.. That's about the most brazen thing you could come up with short of stealing it from him in a drive-by on your motorcycle." So of course, that's exactly what they decide to do. (I need to learn to keep my fingers off my keyboard.)

So, they arrive; the rigger has a Stormcloud doing a lazy, high flyover, and an MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone parked about a block away, ready to buzz up and swing into action if it turns into a shoot-out. Bom has the neotenous elf in his truck, playing the part of the bored teenager to give him credibility, and in the back of the truck he has three crates, all of which contain members of the Rattus genus. One of them is unmarked. The second is marked "For Metahuman Consumption." The third is a large steel box, and contains a Demon Rat named Facebook.

The hacker has forged a Shangri-Law purchase order for one crate of rats, one crate of edible rats, and one Devil Rat, with a price of 1800:nuyen: attached. He waits in the delivery line while the huge trucks which are bringing the Troll-sized port-a-johns are unloaded, then goes up. Jaeger checks the delivery, and completely disbelieves that someone ordered rats. He calls Nabo to confirm, but due to Nabo's commlink being on the fritz, Nabo comes down to investigate in person.

Discussion is made, and as the Ninja lines up for his last approach, Nabo decides that the order of the rats must be some petty revenge by Ari Tarkasian for Nabo's stubborn insistence that he and his boys can handle the set-up and security for the concert. Nevertheless, he resolves to pay, since "it's not our money anyway," and does so vowing to make Ari Tarkasian eat one of those rats. At this point, Nabo has been Suggested by the other mage, who is masquerading as a field mouse pet on Bom's shoulder, to ignore any indications of a motorbike that he may hear, and to hold his commlink steady, as he's trying to place a call to Ari. The Ninja roars up, with Nabo completely oblivious and all of his boys standing aside, and the cyberninja steals his commlink right out of his hand - and Bom's, to boot. (Seriously, he smashed home is his Pilot (Ground) roll and knocked his Palming roll out of the park.)

Proceed immediately with Bom attempting to use Charisma + Con, convincing (thanks largely to another Suggestion) Nabo that they have both been victimized. Nabo tells Jaeger to pay the man for his rats and his stolen commlink, so they make off with 2,100:nuyen: in a certified credstick (without his commlink, he obviously couldn't take possession of the money electronically,) given to them willingly by the person they were victimizing.


The fallout from this should be pretty damn spectacular, especially once that Demon Rat calls a horde of Devil Rats, which in turn bring basically every mundane rat in Redmond Barrens, down on the concert. Nabo is going to blame Ari for setting him up to make "His" concert a spectacular failure, and he's going to break his contract and jump ship to another label, probably signed by Darius St. George. The best part is that Ari won't be able to prove to Nabo that the forgery is a forgery, because the forgery itself was stolen, and Bom had Nabo sign generic paper backup receipts.


So, their cyberninja pulled off an epic feat of manual and automotive dexterity, they got paid by the person they were fucking, and they've sabotaged a rockstar's relationship with his label. Not bad for making it up on the go.

My group once had to jump off a skyscraper with no parachutes fighting true form wasps spirits on the way down while our maye had to catch us using levitate.

Metaquest if I remember correctly.

Our GM had crafted a huge-ass labyrith of a map with multiple encounters on the way of finding a horror (if we didnt get lost).

Our resident slightly egomaniac sun mage decided that "Right is always Right" so we only took right turns.

We walked straight through the labyrinth and ended up at the horrors location without meeting ANYTHING else in the area.

We were as surprised as the GM. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

see now thats a bad labryinth i would have designed a couple of circles in there so you would just have to take a couple of lefts evetually and lead u/ move the encounters so you would have to get at least one

The story also reminds me of one I heard from The Other Game where the cleric worshiped the god of luck and had a prestanding tradition of choosing things with a coin flip. The group defaulted to him to decide where they went and within 30 mins of random coin-flips they made it to the end of the dungeon without fighting anything, and the dungeon was supposed to keep them occupied for the next couple months of sessions.

Did the horror look like a giant David Bowie?

In Missing Blood, my decker with a crappy TMP loaded with explosive rounds was the first to do actual damage to the Queen. It was a desperation move, but thanks to first edition staging rules he was able to do enough damage to drop her dice pools just enough for the other characters to capitalize and build up momentum. Not exactly completely nuts. Most of the time in Shadowrun, the characters have to do things that are completely nuts.

Creative moments are common enough though, no matter the game. It is funny how a minor detail can make all the difference in a player's decision making. What's that? A big church bell, and the hill giant is beneath it? Let's shoot the rope and drop the bell on his head...

But you can't do that without the Ranged Sunder feat.

IIRC, my players pulled that off when DnD 3e was fresh out of the gate, I don't believe that feat existed yet. You know, before they explicitly stated that you couldn't summon a water creature unless it was going to be summoned into water.

Dropping a killer whale on a dragon, now that was completely nuts. I wouldn't have allowed it except that my first thought was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The minotaur once put a Johnson through a blender and made smoothies.

~Umi

You mean they...

They actually cast Summon Bigger Fish and it worked?!

BWAH-hahahahahaaah!





Come on, Umi, you can't leave us hanging like that! This sounds like a story that would even make the rounds on JackPoint. Tell us tell us tell us!

My players used Paddy's bus.

The one that scared the rest of the Irish Republican Army in Exile (IRAiE).

Yes, a bomb that scared a bunch of IRISHMEN. Put together by a guy that called demolitions his hobby.

not sure if this lives up, but one of our GMs sent us to a secret underground facility on a deliver-and-fix-it type run. Security is supposed to let us out again.

Surprise surprise, the 22 story facility (who the hell dug that hole?) is covered in blood and parts, resident evil style. No zombies though; apparently it was a paracritter facility instead, and someone/thing let them all out (resident evil, right?) Only survivors are a group of kids we found, and we had to traipse through most of the facility to figure out how to get out.

GM pulled stops in excess of the book, too. Cerberus hounds on one floor (I knocked one out and wrapped it in a tarp, to go). Floor 5 had a freakin juggernaut, despite my strenuous objections, which we found out by basically blundering into it, since NONE of our actual characters had a knowledge skill that would clue us into how BAD NEWS this was. The NPC party member was the one with the knowledge, and didn't bother to TELL anyone: he just started running back to the elevator without saying a word. Also, this floor sorta set a timer on the whole issue: it wouldn't be long before the thing got done eating on it's floor and decided to chew to another.

The kicker was floor 18. We'd sent a spirit up their to scout, and it got KO'd by something (we don't know what, but force 5 spirit) when it passed a head through the floor. The "other" way out was on that floor, and of course it has no security cameras to preview. Considering what we'd already seen in terms of BOOK SAYS DOESN'T HAPPEN, we were not pleased with the concept of going out that way.

Instead, we got together and mangled the electronics on all floors enough for our runner with hardware to cobble back together the security panel that someTHING else ate, and reopen the main entrance. GM was highly disappointed that we skipped out on his grand finally, but we aren't getting paid for that sh%t.

And the worst part is the end. Our team has a few vindictives, and we went to pay the Johnson a visit. The team as a whole decided to strong arm him, and he wound up paying us more for clearing (most) of his facility. Why is this worse?

Because the johnson lived. Revenge is coming: the character I played is too stupid to understand, and the rest of the group is oblivious. However, that GM and myself are currently planning the revenge run for payback, which I will be running, not he. I may have to screw over my own character, but it's going to be WORTH IT. I don't think they even see this coming, and certainly not from a different GM.

And this run was before my beasthandler concept too (;_;)


I didn't see that episode of "Will It Blend"

That was the one that was converted into a fuel-air explosive, right? The one that could take down a fifth of Redmond Barrens?




I don't think I would've let that Johnson live for sending me into a hell-hole like that and trying to stiff me. Forget the money, I'm gonna toss him to his own paracritters.

"stiff" maybe too strong a word. He payed us what he contracted to. Our group, who was hired for a drop and fix, decided that we deserved more.

I am surprised the johnson walked away, but it was roleplayed correctly. Dice were employed, the johnson debased himself with wheedled apologies, and the group was smart enough to weave the dumb but VERY aggressive hobgoblin brawler in mental circles first and satisfy vindictive without a Johnson dying before we got paid. It was all plausible. It just wasn't the smartest move a paranoid shadowrunner group would make.

I'm curious what it could have been.

we never found out, but since one of the cells in the storage floor had a human sized cot, and paracritters could never have bridged floors as easily as they had, it was something sentient, probably with friends. We also got some hints that it might find the alternate exit itself. But we weren't getting paid for that either (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I hazard it was a cyberzombie.

In an effort to cause distraction in the pre-shutdown Renraku arcology, my players sent out all the mages elements to appear randomly around the place shout "BoogapBooga!" and vanish. Well except for one... They sent hus force 10 great form earth elemental to march into the fusion reactor, well towards it, the mage wanted to give it attack the reactor orders, the rest of the team didn't think it would be able to do that but weren't sure so banned the order.

The reason for this? So that they could drop an box (with a brick in it) on a higher floor as part of a security test for the places new expert system. Somepart of me thinks Deus is partially their fault.

The Improvised FAE, yes.

Wouldn't marching a Force 10 Great Form Earth Elemental into a fusion reactor shut down the reaction?

That would certainly be distracting. Not sure if your Renraku Johnson would pay you extra for finding another hole in their security, or pay you in bullets for shutting down a fucking expensive fusion reactor. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)



That part must be proud. If you're never going to make a major positive acomplishment, then you should endeavor to at least fuck up so royally that the whole world knows of it and will never forget it. Bonus points if you can do it without revealing your name.


You know, like the dickhead Troyan who said "Wow, an enormous horse! Those Greeks sure are gracious losers, let's haul it inside and par-tay!"

The rest of the team figured that it shutting down would be, while distracting, explosive and since they were in the place at the time.



The most fun part was some time later I ran an Arc Shut down 8hr one shot, one of the PCs was a security guard who the team's Elf bodyguard had KOed (into something like serious physical with one punch). he kept muttering about being on medical leave for months just prior to the shut down.

My best 'oh shit' moment was during a 2e game I was running a long while back.

The team is infiltrating an office building in the middle of the night, and they sent the Street Sam ahead. They're all carrying nonleathals, as the Johnson didn't want any bloodshed. As they totally botched their surveillance, the sam walks into the night guard. He stares at this chromed-out madman in shock, and the party's street sam does the craziest thing I've ever seen.

He smiles at the guy, holds up his Narcoject rifle, and says. "I've got Kamikaze in this!"

Shoots the guard four times before he can react, 2 standard narcoject rounds that knock him the hell out, then two overdose rounds full of Kamikaze.

He figures the guy's dead, and the party moves on. I make the Body rolls, and the guard survives both doses... and is unconscious due to narcoject for half the Kamikaze's duration. They do a quick smash & grab, and get ready to pull out. As the team is getting ready to leave, they hear a bloodcurdling scream of rage from the front foyer. They have just enough time to look that way before a crazed man in a security uniform, bleeding from all orifices in his head, outright murders the face with a piece of corporate art. Hit him so hard he went straight into overflow.

Ten rounds of combat later they manage to kill this guy, and run away just before the DocWagon HTR team that the contract the Face hadn't mentioned to them called in got there.

So, I'm guessing that Mr. Johnson did not pay them?

Nope. Not one (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) .