The Shadowriders, The neglected law enforcers. Options

[hyzmarca]

I just caught the tail end of a rather crappy martial arts movie staring Don "The Dragon" Wilson. In this movie Wilson was a murderous vigalante who used his superior martial arts prowess to slay several gun-toting thugs over the course so the film. The news dubbed him "The Karate Man."

At the end of the movie, after he has killed the last of the evil drug dealers guys and their leader, his very own well-respected psychiatrist, his escape is cut off by half a dozen police officers.

The cops don't arrest Wilson. Instead they give him a file or a picture or something (I wasn't paying much attention) and say "This is your next target."
When Wilson expresses confusion they elaborate gruffly, "The system doesn't work" "You've been approved. We're a secret squad that reports directly to the mayor."

Now, Wilson's character in this movie is clearly crazy. Aside from being on psychiatric medication and being a murderous vigilante he seems to take glee in his work and maims his victims unnecessarilary at times. If he were an adept he would be walking the fine border of the Twisted Path. The police accept him anyway because he is so good at what he does.

This is obviously unrealistic from one perspective. Most police departments won't secretly sanction the ritualistic serial murders of a very high profile vigilante but Lone Star isn't most police departments and it is canon that they do have a secret department that keeps a stable of shadowrunners on call for all sorts of illicit activity, including wetwork.


Everyone is always going on about how GMs should pull out a full SWAT beatdown for stupid copkillers but there are situations where that just doesn't work. There are places in the Metroplex were Lone Star will not and can not go. Glow City, The Barrens, and other Z zones are ruled by gangs and warlords. Shadowrunners thrive in these places and copkillers are safe from overt police activity.

But there is a solution. Rather than breaking flavor you can use something that is already canon. Have the Shadowriders roll into town and have the multi-initiate Twisted physad Don "The Dragon" Wilson beat them down with his superior krotty in spite of their superior numbers and superior guns.

[mfb]

your ideas intrigue me and i wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

on a larger scale, i can easily see LS inserting personnel into the Barrens to infiltrate the gangs there, in order to instigate small-scale gang wars that a) relieve enough pressure that large-scale gang wars are a rarity, and b) create some nice, safe, publically-visible crime in low-rent areas that the Star can ride in and smash if they need a few rating points. kinda like the US did/does in third-world countries, only slightly less cynical and horrible.

[fistandantilus4....]

If I were to use this, I would make sure that they know the guys full name, as well as his alias "the karate man", jsut to add insult to injury. Hyz, I love your ideas. so warped and twisted (and sometimes akward) and usable!

[SL James]

[mfb]

these shadowrider guys would, i think, occupy the same social strata in the shadows (in seashells by the sea shore) that bounty hunters ought to--generally despised, but also somewhat feared, especially the good ones. i mean, they're the same scum as everyone else, except they work for the enemy.

[SL James]

"Work for," "Are," it's all semantics.

But, yeah, bounty hunters are scum, and in SR even moreso.

[Kiedo]

I use something similar except instead of answering to the star, they answer to DIMR, I actually did a run on this forum (that fizzled unfortunately), where the PCs were the DIMR "secret police".

But I like the idea of it just being on very small, guy. maybe a dawrf, that'd be hilarious to see trolls and street sams being broken in half by a guy who doesn't come up to thier waist.

[Laser]

I don't remember where, but I do remember reading that Lone Star, like every other corporation, isn't above hiring some, shall we say, deniable assets if the need should strike them. They do it less than other corps will, but that doesn't equate to not at all. It's actually a good way for a canny GM to give some players who have only slightly pissed off the cops a second chance -- turn it into a story hook, and if they insist on biting the hand that's (well, not exactly feeding them, but letting them go), they can get disappeared with the rest of the sinless.

[SL James]

Dude.

The Shadowriders are the deniable assets they hire, but in runner terms might be considered company men.

[Anythingforenoug...]

In the past,mostly in middle school, I had a real problem with hard core cop killer runners [After I went off to School I lost regular touch with the two of my friends who were the most aggressive cop killers, but, in one of lifes funnier turns, they are now, one of them a Police Officer himself, and the other is serving as an MP in a National Guard unit]. My solution came from the idea of "ChromeCops" employed by Lone Star and CyberPsycosis from several of the other books-I turned the crazy from stress/over use of cyperware cyborg cops on them. My totally relentless semi-secret high tech quasi-zombie death squad unit became quite effective as far as convincing them to tone it down a bit. Or they may just have taken it as a sign that they had pushed me too far and toned it down a bit for my sake, but that was not really our/their style in middle school. I play with and entirely new group now, and my guys still show up from time to time, but now I mostly use them to add a bit of humor into the game.