Vigilantism in Shadowrun? Options

[emo samurai]

Has anyone done much vigilantism in your games? What's the lethality of your MO? Has anyone done the admittedly psychotic level of social engineering that my character has done?

[Kanada Ten]

My PCs trained a kidnap mark to assassinate the Johnson after they handed her over. But that's about the extent of it.

[emo samurai]

BOOOOOOORING!!! :D

[Muzzaro]

Probably boring, but started an anti-metahuman riot just to keep some corp goons off our backs. I think most of the goons got killed in the riots, but we was out of there before anything heavy happened.

[emo samurai]

Dude, that's not vigilantism at all! That's just mundane, everyday incitement to racial violence! The goal wasn't street justice! You are so banished. :D

[Muzzaro]

it was street justice! We didn't want to be beaten to a pulp, so we let the street beat them to a pulp instead. Ok so it's twisting vigilantism to breaking point, but the people who took out the goons were acting as vigilantes... right? :P

Not that my character cared. Them or her. If a handful of bystanders got offed, then their own fault for responding to it.

[headfirst-for-ha...]

Boondock saints is vigilantism.
"you and your rope"
:)

[mfb]

well, no idea how much social engineering your char has done, but my character Race is basically a vigilante... sorta. she doesn't bother trying to make any kind of difference, she just likes hitting people who fail to meet her vague sense of morality.

[emo samurai]

My character has summoned a force 9 fire spirit to scorch key members of a gang called the "Night Blades" and destroy their weapons cache. He has told them his number in case another gang attacks him so he can send Mr. Pyro on a remote service to help them, first with nonlethal force, then with very lethal burnings. He has decided he will give them a new set of guns after a month of good behavior and has set several Spirits of Man with Mind Probe learned to Thought Police the Night Blades and adjacent gangs to learn about impending acts of violence. And all this is done from astral space; he is working from behind a ward in his own home.

So yeah. Social engineering.

And don't make fun of the name of the gang; remember that the Rusty Stilettos are a canon gang.

[Calvin Hobbes]

My character's declared war on car thieves in the area, because his car got stolen and he realised how much just having your car affects the life of a SINless. He sets bait cars to electrocute or psychotropically gas car thieves, and even went to the trouble of hiding in a truck and then destroying a chop shop. Another member of the team is an unaugmented human who uses ambushes, automated turrets, and explosives to kill cybernetically enhanced individuals who belong to gangs. A third member of our team just moonlights as a shadowrunner to afford his vampire-hunting.

[emo samurai]

Oh... wow...

I would have thought that most people would steal the cars of corp people. They're less likely to be professionally rigged up, and they're likely to be worth more.

[Calvin Hobbes]

At least in our game, it tends to be that people in the Corp sector tend to have vehicles with security good enough to beat most thieves, moving between sectors involves ID checks that are really tough to beat, and about a billion other factors that make it easier for the poor to victimize the poor.

[emo samurai]

What about cars that aren't in the Corp sector, but aren't in the Barrens, either? The in-between land? I doubt security's that polarized in SR.

I guess the reason shadowrunners aren't vigilantes much is because they are themselves criminals and survivalists.

[Voran]

In my last Sr3 game before semi-retirement of my astral sight capable bioborg type'main' char, my char was acting as an off-hours assistant to a FBI friend who was looking for some missing kids. The case seemed unconnected, until other evidence hinted at a serial kidnapper (literally..heh). Enough evidence was gathered to have a more official response/backup provided, by my char and his friend went in first, my char snuck a peek with astral sight and found the heavily cybered dude/kidnapper doing unspeakable things to a kid, my char flipped out, pulled the guy off (not too hard, since with bioware, under sr3 rules, my char was nearly troll strong) and put him through the wall, only to find even more evidence, other kids in cages bearing signs of abuse. Since I figured it was my last game, my char went apeshit and tore the dude apart. In front of the FBI friend, and in front of the FBI tac team backup that arrived just in time to see him commit murder.

In discussion afterwards, the GM and I figured my guy got arrested, but we figured due to his particular background, instead of ending up in prison, his minders would have used their resources to pull him, especially since my char had some experimental genetic augments/bioware that would need to be kept secret. Given that he did the astral sight thing, we figured after the event he went catatonic, and subsequently got placed in cryostorage in a big tube back at the secret facility under the Center for Disease Control where he was 'born'. Sorta ending up like the Jenova project in FF7, but not all dismembered, and such.

In game time sense, we ended early 2064. When SR4 came out, the hack in me was inspired to try and write what would have happened if he got woke up again in 2070.

[Laser]

my group engineered a couple of viruses (commissioned them, actually), one physical and one computer, to prevent some corps from basically doing the same (the idea being that our virus (which was otherwise harmless) would render immunity to theirs (which wasn't), so as long as we spread it first, we win). The computer virus was to wipe out our competitors' research.

[emo samurai]

Cool.

You can engineer viruses in SR?

[Calvin Hobbes]

I'm not sure my character's ever really worried about them: those people have the ability to get insurance, call Lone Star, ride the subway. Plus, it's very cheap and easy to get all kinds of crazy stuff for your car for those who can afford it. It's the people who rely on their old, inherited vehicle for subsistence Vincent's really sympathetic to.

Again, I'm not saying it's impossible, our game just kind of assumes a vast, empty no man's land between rich and poor.

[emo samurai]

It should be easier now with wireless and everything.

[fistandantilus4....]

My gargoyle shaman took over an area in the Puyallup barrens, basing himself out of an abandoned factory. Rebuilt it with time, moeny , and magic (Use spell, Barrier, Fix, Stone Shape, wonderful things all). He then started patrolling the area. He has two actual gargoyles and a small pack of hell hounds (used Control Pack until he got them all good and trained up) and a pair of low force ally spirits that looked like 1' tall gargoyles (both had minor sorcery abilities). They'd hunt the area around where he lived clearing out anyone he thought was "evil". They'd literally tear apart pimps and rapists, char the hell out of chip dealers. They'd all just swoop down while the hounds would block off the escape. he had a lot of fun with his SM-3 too.

After a while, he switched to a full on hunt for Tanamous after a couple of really nasty runins, where one of his best friends ( a lady in her mid-60's ,real grandma type) was almost cut up for parts. He designed really gruesome spells, like Rearrange Skeletal Structure, and made a skull mask that was a sustaining foci for Forboding and Control temperature (drop the temp way down, all psychological). Toss in a Scythe Weapon foci, and good use of False Signature and Sterlize spells to stay ahead of "the law". He really went off the deep end on these guys for a while.

[Laser]

[Ophis]

Stealing shamelessly from Warren Ellis (like Emo can bitch about that...) I have an old Character, now NPC set up an organisation of experts and Runners to fight major threats coming out of shadowy projects and corp foobars, basically Global Frequency in SR. the organisation is called the Hand of God

[Perssek]

For a time, in my last campaign (heavily influenced by Shadows of Redemption), my players were robin hood (or ronin hood, as they said), SR style: they robbed from who had a lot of cash and then gave some to people they liked and had none.

Mostly.

They also killed everybody who was a pain to them and their friends and neighbhours. With prejudice.

Lots of it.

[emo samurai]

By pain, do you mean "hit them up for money" pain or "Sorry I hit your car can I pay for it" pain?

And why did you mention the possibility of my bitching about Warren Ellis? Have I ever bitched about anybody stealing ideas from places?

[emo samurai]

I just saw some pictures of beagles in animal testing laboratories. :.(...

Has anybody used animal testing as a run seed?

[James McMurray]

Depending on your definition of animal that could be Renraku Arcology's shutdown.