Hello Dumpshocked people!
So, this thread features spoilers about Ghost Cartels, so don't read it if you aren't a GM or if you haven't played it alreay. Resist temptation (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) .
I'm going to have my players go through all the adventures in the book, starting with "A Stranger in our House, Part I"; but I'd like to have them be challenged a bit by what seems a simple run.

And now, the spoilerish stuff.



So, how would you proceed in that situation? How do I make things a bit more difficults for my players?

Thanks (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

its kinda hard for drones to enter a club, unless carried in...
and my group just finished the 1st story arc

and i always forget how to post the spoilers tab

In that situation, I won't make it more difficult for my players. The rigger paid for his drones, he should be rewarded for his foresight. In Shadowrun, if things aren't exciting, the players are doing it right. If a player had spent resources to make something a cakewalk, then I'd allow it.

IMO, Ghost Cartels is tough enough without adding additional complications into the mix. Whatever violence the PCs can avoid, I would allow them to avoid it if they do not go looking for it.

One way I made it more difficult was require that both targets be shadowed simultaneously.

Thanks a lot for the help!

Well I thought of that, but it's a cheap, obvious choice for the rigger. I don't want it to be a "I win" button - but I do want to reward it, just within reasonable proportions.
The other problem is that the target and his bodyguards are supposed to be on their guards about being tracked or spied on. If it was that easy to track someone that anyone with 2.5k nuyens could do it, then what's the point of being on their guard? What can they do about it?
Last but not least, I don't want the other players to be bored and have nothing to do - they should take part in the investigation and legwork.

As the GM of the game that is your preorgative, but I would add that in SR, many such things have the odds heavily on their side. Remember if you want to simulate being on guard, you could increase the guards Perception dice pool(taking a Simple Action to Observe in Detail) instead of being reduced normally(being Distracted). IIRC, that is usually a difference of 5 dice - early good enough for 2 successes.

If you have a skilled hacker or rigger amongst the guards,
they might eventually notice that they are being followed by a device with a contiguous device ID (especially if the drone isn't ghosting) or they might detect the incessant broadcast that seems to follow them even when they leave high traffic areas.

Also do drones pop up in thermal? Their heat signature might eventually give them away.

Regardless, the drones should be useful for a while, but never trust a machine to do a mans job.

Really good call. You don't even need a skilled hacker, actually, in this case, considering the weakness of my rigger's systems - a decent sniffing should do it. Also, good call for the thermovision.

Now, they say 6 hours of fuel for most vehicles, but how much would you say for such a drone? It's very small -not much room for batteries - and it's flying, which isn't the most energy-conservative way to move.

Glad I could be of use.
Arsenal doesn't have much more to add over what you already know:
Apparently, it's up to you.

From my reading of the GC material, Littletree is making himself hard to track even from his own people. Is he going to bring his own men? Maybe if those guys are his own very loyal underlings whom he can trust not to rat him out to his own bosses or to talk to other gang members. He is probably not going to have anymore than a very small number of bodyguards, if at all. The guards around the safehouse are going to be there, they won't know where he went to when he returns.

Remember the drone/s do not have to close, all they need to do is to keep track of where Littletree is and not lose his trail. The drones could just back off once he is on his way back to the safehouse where there are presumably more security.

Fair enough, I haven't read or run through ghost cartels yet.
Does Littletree have a decent comm and the capability of using it?
Does he have a capable agent?

The 6th world has a lot of places that have been referred to as panopticons (as in, anything within them can be observed from anywhere else) and even outside corp enclaves, you're not going to be able to take a shit without someone getting it on camera. If you're not being followed by a little drone, then someone could be hacking your commlink (I'm thinking of a trojan that constantly transmits the location to a specific node - turn their commlink into an RFID tag!), following you in the astral or searching the 'trix with facial recognition software for every appearance you've made on any camera in the past 6 hours.

My point is, I think people who don't want to be found in the 6th world have realized that looking over their shoulders and putting on a baseball cap aren't going to get the job done. If you REALLY don't want to be found, you're probably wearing a latex mask, using a one-shot commlink in hidden mode, and using manatech to deter astral surveillance. I don't know Ghost Cartels, so maybe this guy is Awakened, but if he's not, then maybe he has a Lucifer Lamp (makes astral objects show up as spirits EDIT: shadows, they show up like shadow puppets), a spray can of FAB II (slows down astral movement and makes anything astral faintly visible) or glomoss (glows when magic is active within [Force] meters).

Now, if you realize you've got your guy and sic the drones on him, it's a fair contest; the drones roll Pilot + Covert Ops (they have the right autosoft, don't they?) and he rolls Shadowing + Intuition. If he notices them, he'll probably either try to ditch them by going somewhere they can't (maybe museums have a no-aerodrone policy, because kids kept crashing their toys into the holography) or faster than they can (any car/bike can outrun a dragonfly), or maybe he'll just be so spooked out by the realization that somebody's following him that he'll find the deepest, darkest hole he can and hide there for a few days.

I hope some of that helped and/or got you thinking about useful things!