Ah but that's different; he did it himself (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

Yup. I'm told he's done the amnesia trick in other games to get out of making a character history and then steadfastly ignored any plot seeds the GM sent his way.
Not this time buddy (IMG:style_emoticons/default/vegm.gif)

If you go with the level of tech suggested, it should be possible to just get some nanites programmed to eat the cortex bomb. Huff 'em up and sit back for a bit. Of course, it should be just as easy to put a cortex bomb in too.

It has to do with the kind of story you are trying to tell.

In a realistic world, if someone threatens you via violence, blackmail, etc., then the smart thing to do is to not play by their rules. As you said, there's no reason to assume they will let you off the hook just because they got what they want. Find a way to turn the tables on them; come clean about the subject of the blackmail and take him down with you. Shoot the hostage. Do whatever you can to remove the opposition's power as fast as possible; negotiation is at best a stalling tactic.

However, Shadowrun plays by a slightly different set of rules - it is generally a dramatic narrative. Action Movie, Caper Flick, Spy Film - the archtypical Shadowrun plotlines are not based on reality, but on cinema. If a guy tries to kill you, you don't call the police, you engage in a cat-and-mouse game of escalating destruction across international borders with car chases and witty banter, culmulating in a mano-a-mano duel, preferably at midnight on top of a building in the rain.

Dramatic narratives are perhaps less realistic, but they are a hell of a lot more fun. A willingness to play along with certain conventions will encourage this style of gameplay. In this case, the leverage that the bad guy has is designed to get you to 'play along' for the duration of the story. This same "adventure against your will" story can be told with a dozen different kinds of leverage - cranial bombs, kidnapped family or loved ones, doomsday devices, curses, geasa, snipers, bombs that will kill random innocents, etc. If the implicit challenge of the story is "survive the suicide mission", then an escape route will present itself once that challenge is overcome. If the implicit challenge is "get out of this mess", then the suicide mission is the less interesting part of the story and the character is expected to focus on the person who is holding the detonator instead. Figuring out which way you are expected to go is the trick.

Consider "Escape from LA" vs the "Die Hard" movies. In "Escape", our anti-hero is unwilling to take action to save anyone but himself - the 'good guys' set him up with a timebomb to get him to take out the 'bad guys'. If he hadn't played along, they would have simply executed him, no movie. That would be boring. Conversely, all of the "Die Hard" movies are based around a villian who is counting on the 'good guys' believing his story and playing along - the hero spends the film sabotaging the bad guy's plans out of sheer cussedness, and eventually is shown to be right.

The bottom line is, the Cranial Bomb can be a way for the GM to lead you into an awesome adventure - or getting rid of it can be the adventure. Figure out which one the GM is planning on and you will have more fun with it.

That's kind of where I was going with it -- in the end there is no incentive for the Corp to remove a crainial bomb, which means there is a plot hook for players to find their own way to remove the device.

It was a rhetorical "why".

For some ideas about just how hard getting rid of unwanted cerebral implants can be, check out Farscape.



Because part of blackmail is the tantalizing promise that the blackmailer will let you off the hook. A target with no hope will not cooperate fully, or perhaps try to turn the tables on you. Given that your target is competent at something (else why bother), you're making a potentially dangerous enemy.

Irrational targets are harder to control.

Thank you all for your input.

Since currently I'm GM, I think I will confront the player with the hard facts:
The bomb can be removed, but it takes time (to find a specialist/adapt nanites), money (to pay the specialist/adapt the nanites) and bares the risk of a serious headache (death of the char with a certain probability).
This leaves some options open for the player:
- doing the job and hoping for the bad guys being in a better mood after the job is done
- hunting for the bad guy or finding information to blackmail the baddy (hoping to be faster than the bad guy holding the trigger)
- and everything inbetween

This also leaves some potential plot hooks open e.g. the search for/extraction of a specialist

So what do you think?

This post has been edited by regen: Apr 21 2010, 08:00 AM

Question:
How is the bomb triggered?
If by wifi, then by all means, all you need would be some of those wifi enabling nanites repurposed to disabling wifi.
inject, wait, done. Or tinfoil-hats. or those nifty disassembler nanites. you just have to make sure to tell them what, exactly, they should disassemble.
meaning anything that does NOT belong into a head up there. nanites attack stuff on the molecular level right? there is no way for any device to defend against that.

Well, don't take it away then. Whatever.

My point was that the bomb is there to motivate players into action. It's a macguffin. A plot hook. It should never be something the players can just get rid of with a visit to a street doc and a few die rolls.

Therefore, the specific rules mechanics of how it gets removed, or not, are irrelevant.

Dice shouldn't matter. The person who put it in wants something. There's a plot hook. The runners can do this thing or find some third party to intervene and remove the bomb. Another plot hook, as the third party is likely going to want something too.

Later, either the bomb goes away or it does not. If it goes away, exactly what skill rolls would be required to remove it should be irrelevant. If it does not, either the runner gets his head exploded or has to live with the bomb. Again, dice should be irrelevant either way.


-karma

I'm in complete agreement with you on the idea that it shouldn't be handwaved with a couple of rolls of the dice, I was thinking more believable plot. Whichever Johnson decides to put a cranial bomb in a runner, has shown that he has a pretty casual respect for a the runners. A guy who sticks a bomb in your head is an asshole, he isn't going to turn into Guy Smiley after a succesful run or three, or five.

Personally the only thing that runs through my head at this point is Vader's "I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it further."