Anyone make a habbit of running in Las Vagas, Sin city? Options

[Snow_Fox]

I do not mean like "Ocean's 11" and the big score of hitting a Casino, but with all the casino's tourists and entertainments there seems to be lots of room for play. Look at Sean Connery's movie "Diamonds are Forever" for an example and in the 35 years since that came out the city's options have really taken off.

[Beaumis]

We tried a vegas like setting once. Was kinda fun to include all the gambling and stuff, but eventually we ditched it because the reasonable amount of Corporate security in a town like that makes it pretty much impossible for shadows to exist.

The basic setting was great though.

[SL James]

I've set fiction pieces in Vegas, but not actual games. Seattle's plenty depressing on its own. Sending a team to a wasteland like Vegas would be like punching myself in the balls for fun.

[Dog]

Damn right you'd never get away with anything! Those CSI guys solve two crimes every night!

[SL James]

Uh, sure. In other news, the impression NAN 1 and SoNA give of life off the strip is a pretty good start. It's a horrible, horrible place.

[BlackHat]

[Frackula]

I GM a campaign that takes place in Vegas. I started with Dumpshock Wiki, NAGEE, regular Wiki, but it wasn't enough of a full setting, so I added a lot of my own. I'm new at this, and I don't have any sourcebooks other than 3rd Edition, 4th Edition, and the internet. I don't know what the official plans for Vegas are, but there doesn't seem to be much info on it, all of it very old. I wrote an unofficial guide for my players, but it's a little too big to post here (24 pages in Microsoft Word, and it could use a lot of fixing up).

Problems:
Corporate security at the casinos is heavy as hell, and under normal Shadowrun circumstances the shadows would be too frustrating. My solution was to start with high powered characters and use those "cinematic rules" in the 4th Edition suggestion page (there was some paranoia about glitching, as well, even though it still happens). Missions don't always have to be casino robbery, that's more of a story arc. There is also North Las Vegas which is more "normal" for Shadowrun, and some of the runs take place in the desert outside of the city. I also play upon the movie theme by doing missions such as a wild western style train robbery through a canyon. Casinos are very paranoid and will not hesitate to take the runners down, but the missions don't always have to be casino runs.

Area:
NAGEE said Vegas is surrounded by V Regions that were off-limits, which made sense under Ute government. The Ute nation no longer exists, and I have the Pueblo controlling the zones. They're slightly more lax, but still protective of the areas. The desert is full of nocturnal paranormal critters, of course.

North Vegas is where the shadows originate. Unfortunately, there is very little info on it I could find. I made it sort of like Redmond Barrens. Dirty, smoggy, crime infested film noir kind of typical Shadowrun place. I added some ominous megacorp presence: Evo Labs and Horizon Teleport Town. Ares had a secret facility in ruins outside of town, and there was one extraction mission at a Horizon broadcasting compound way out in Cedar City.

The Cannon and NAGEE casinos:
* Aladdin
* Bally's
* Barbary Coast
* Caesar's Palace
* Circus Circus
* Excalibur
* Flamingo
* Frontier
* Gold Coast
* Luxor
* Mandalay Bay
* The Mirage
* The Edge
* Tropicana

I got rid of Frontier, Barbary Coast, Gold Coast, and Circus Circus (ugh! too kiddie), moved Wind Speaker and Flamingo operations to different areas altogether. I added:

Sahara
Imperial Palace
Event Horizon
Treasure Island
MGM Grand
Mandalay Bay
Venetian
Palazzo
Bellagio
Echelon

Event Horizon is a Horizon affiliated casino with disturbing implications. Echelon is a run-down shopping center that replaced the Stardust.

And then I made nightclubs, restaurants, and other places for the runners to meet and do things. A lot were based on real life, and either seedy run down versions of the originals, or deliberate remakes. These places have less security than the casinos themselves (attention is focused on the gambling to look for cheaters), and they all attract rougher crowds (even Picasso's!)

Studio 54 (MGM)
Picasso's (Bellagio)
Horyuji (Imperial Palace)
Red Square (Mandalay Bay)
NASCAR Cafe (Sahara, obvious rigger hangout)
Cleopatra's Barge (Caesar's)
The Aftermath (The Edge)
The Flamingo Bar (The Flamingo)
Tropics Lounge (The Tropicana)
Planet X (Event Horizon)
Sapphire's (Strip club, 3025 S. Industrial)

The way I do it (or at least how I try to do it), Vegas has the atmosphere of mob rule and Rat Pack days.

[dog_xinu]

[Wounded Ronin]

Meh, Las Vegas is just like Disneyland for adults. I think it would be better to have a Shadowrun occur with Disneyland where guards wearing environmental seal Mickey Mouse shaped heavy security armor can gas you and shoot you.

I actually ran a campaign with runs against Disney. Characters who were captured by Disney security forces (which wore Mickey Mouse armor) were left to die of exposure in the desert on a plastic Tree of Woe taken directly from Conan the Barbarian.

[Frackula]

[SL James]

Drone tech, for one. Hell, Disney almost undoubtedly hired runners to steal drones from the Arcology during the shutdown.

BTW, what's wrong with being paid in human blood?

[hyzmarca]

Maybe someone wants to put an end to the horrific blood rituals that keep Walt alive.

Disney is eviler than Aztechnology. Much much eviler.

Consider today.

Disney is more of a bully and more of a copyright nazi than Microsoft. Disney sues children for painting pictures of Mickey Mouse.

Disney has gone to great pains to give its facilities pseudo-extraterrial status through legal manuvering. Today, the police can't talk with disney employees or go onto disney property without the company's permission.

Disney owns a town which it provides housing for its executives. Within this town disney security has full police power and exclusive jurisdiction.

Disney's lobbyiests own so many lawmakers that they can easily get any law changed to suit their needs. Every time the copyright on Mickey Mouse almost expires a law is passed that extends copyright terms.

Disney habitually cuts corners to save money. It has failed every OSHA inspection it has ever had and many of its buildings we're constructed to meet even basic standards.

Diseny owns many corporations, including Mirimax, ABC, and (partially) TiVo. Using the TiVo serivce disney can invade your privacy and track everything you watch on television and you have to pay them a monthly fee for this.

Disney hide subliminal (and sometimes superliminal) sex messages in its children's movies.

Lemming suicides aren't real. Disney filmakers forced a group of poor rodents into some water and filmed them drowning. Creative editing made it look as if the lemmings threw themselves into the ocean of their own free will.

Disney has employed convitced child molesters in the past and probably continues to do so.

Disney employs child labor in their clothing and toy factories. A Disney sweat shop in Los Angeles employed children as young as 12. Their facilities in Asia and South America don't have such high standards.

Disney make and distributes softcore porn via one of its subsidiaries. This isn't so bad except for the fact that softcore sucks. They probably make kiddy-porn BTLs in 2060.

Disney pioneered the Pay-per-view DVD (which never caught own) and the self destructing DVD that burns out after a few days (also never caught on).
This same technology will one day used to make BTLs that burn out after one use.

The number of deaths due to disney ride malfuncton is not statistically anomalous . The number of maimings, however, is unusually large and the percentage of deaths has been increasing recently. Blood magic doesn't require that all sacrifices die. But increased fatalties could suggest that it is becoming more difficult to sustain Walt.

[SL James]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Moon-Hawk]

Hyzmarca, if you turned from serious to sarcastic at some point in that list, I missed it. (obvious 6th world references aside) I'm not calling bulls*** on you or anything, but do you have reputable sources for any of that?

Is....is......is the lemming thing true?

edit: (looked it up) OH MY GOD IT IS TRUE!!! :eek:
Walt Disney YOU BASTARD!!!

edit edit: Oh, my happy-bubble is so burst. I feel so naive. I'm normally so bitter and jaded. But Disney. Damn.

[Frackula]

A lot of those things are myths (particularly the part about putting subliminal sex into their movies), but not the lemming part!

I reccomend this site

[Frackula]

Blackie is now hosting my guide, for anyone who wants to look at
it:

http://www.escconsulting.net/sr/LAS VEGAS for the Shadows.doc

Copy and paste, the thing won't let me do a proper link.

[hyzmarca]

[Grinder]

Disney is evil, i always knew that! Thanks for giving me proper knowledge about them.

[Moon-Hawk]

Wow. Thanks for all the info!
All this time I thought lemmings really did that.
I haven't read all those articles yet, but some of them are rather disturbing. Oh well, they're a big company, I really shouldn't be surprised.
Maybe Dis-technology really is practicing blood magic.

[Frackula]

[Moon-Hawk]

Well, it doesn't sound like Disney is much better or worse than any other big company.

However, I am STILL shocked that lemmings don't really commit mass suicide. I've just always taken it for granted that they did. I mean, it's...it's.....it's what lemmings do. It's what makes them lemmings!
MY LIFE IS A LIE!!!!
*ahem* Yes, well, interesting factoid. I feel pretty dumb for never questioning it.

[hyzmarca]

The thing about Disney is that, due to its public image as a children's movie producer, it is expected to be better and more ethical than other corporations of similar magnitude. The fact that it isn't makes people exagerate its faults. The fact that Disney is a bully and a copyright Nazi irks those of us who believe in universal education and freedom of information, as well.

There is just something about the way that faux niceness that Disney displays to the world contrasts with the reality of the lumbering giant that makes it fun to transform Disney into a caricature of unadulterated evil.

--

Except for the Perverts page, I didn't use any http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/ material that I couldn't verify from other sites. Just because it sounds crazy doesn't mean it isn't true.

Also, Disney has been found negligent in some injuries. A quick perusal of http://www.rideaccidents.com/disneyland.html as found that Disney was found negligent in the case of a boy who is in a coma due to a ride accident. It isn't anomolous, no, but I like to think that each injury at a Disney theme park goes toward fueling some major blood rituals.

[Brahm]

Mickey Mouse gives me the creeps, the arrogant little sh!t. I physically recoil from any Mickey Mouse product or image.

[Frackula]

[Wounded Ronin]

And to think that earlier in this thread someone was wondering how I'd justify runs against Disney. I even had a character death during that story arc. Someone died on the Tree of Woe.