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> Security setups you've used to trap the pcs., Which ones made you the proudest?
emo samurai
post May 31 2006, 06:08 PM
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This is very important to me, since I really, really need inspiration to try to entrap the PC's.
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Vaevictis
post May 31 2006, 06:35 PM
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#1: Choke points.
#2: ... with automatic weapons at one end.
#3: ... with a door that closes off the exit.
#4: ... with Ares Sentinel-P drones.
#5: ... with gas vents for gaseous weapons of various kinds.
#6: ... with fiber optics running into the room so that mages can cast into the room.
#7: ... with claymore mines in the walls.

Everything else is just herding them into the choke point.
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nezumi
post May 31 2006, 06:44 PM
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Put something on the object they're set to retrieve. Alternatively, make the facility (or the item) a vehicle, especially a submarine or something equally crazy. When they pass through the six inch steel, the door slams shut behind them and the sub departs with them on board. The command center is approached through a separate exterior door.
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ronin3338
post May 31 2006, 07:57 PM
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Watch what they do on a job, and look for holes in their plan. Let the trap be sprung from their own failures as a team.

My old group used to never employ safehouses... until the opposition kept following them home and assaulting their apartments.
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stevebugge
post May 31 2006, 08:37 PM
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Personally I love to use Elevators as traps. In a rigger secured building the elevator can easily be used to contain intruders and with the right options can subdue them too. On a related note Stairwells make pretty effective contaiment areas as well, though different tactics have to be used.
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Butterblume
post May 31 2006, 08:49 PM
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Not Shadowrun, but, well:
Once, I used the Door™. I didn't plan in that way, but it confined the PCs for a long time (considering it wasn't even locked).

They tried a makeshift ram and setting fire to the door, which didn't work because it opened in the other direction and was made of stoneoak. Several open lock spells didn't work (couldn't, since the door was not locked).
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Kanada Ten
post May 31 2006, 09:09 PM
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I used the Poison Dinner™ once. The PCs managed to kill the Fake-J and his two Bodyguards before the drug effects knocked them out (fighting +6 TNs!). They did use a bunch of Karma Pool, though.

Which brings me to the fact that many PCs will fight to the death to avoid capture.
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Kyoto Kid
post May 31 2006, 09:11 PM
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A. Give them discount coach tickets on a commercial air carrier from a commercial airport for their return trip during an out of town mission. Not enough resale value to make up the difference for the cost of a smuggler flight & getting an illegal gear or 'ware though becomes an "interesting" challenge.

B. Have a pre-arranged return flight, that of course gets compromised by the bad guys while the runners are finishing up the job at hand. This almost worked in a recent extraction mission I ran were it not for that damnable Mind Probe spell.

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JesterX
post May 31 2006, 09:13 PM
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Riot Control Foam, lots of it... Enough to fill a room. ^_^

The trick used by Ariel Nasir in the original Harlequin campaign worked well also...
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Wounded Ronin
post May 31 2006, 09:29 PM
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Emo,

A complicated, witty security setup is really a wonderful thing to behold in action but to start out you might want to do something simple yet deadly to get your rules-crunching-fu down. To start out, I'd recommend just having the PCs go up against a powerful magical group. Multiple initiates w. air elementals in reserve = pain if the PCs don't fully appreciate the nature of the threat they're up against.

Once you've done that there are a lot of creative things you can do. Here are a few ideas.

1.) Once you've introduced the idea of cover a lot of players will start screaming, "I DIVE FOR COVER I DIVE FOR COVER I TAKE COVER I HAVE COVER DAMMIT" whenever a battle is about to start. Just like the Vietcong, your thing should be to booby trap all the obvious cover. It can be something really nasty and deadly like a spiderweb of monowire in the bushes to something which dosen't hurt that much but which should be impossible to detect like old fashioned punjee stakes. From my personal experience walking through the jungle and falling through the jungle floor up to my thigh multiple times it dosen't matter even if you're looking straight down and specifically trying to avoid holes in the jungle floor while walking very slowly. There's just no way to reliably not be victimized by a basic punjee stake setup.

2.) Another thing is rooms that fill with gas. PCs often forget to bring any gas countermeasures. At the same time you can justify by saying that gas rooms are really common in Shadowrun. They're actually a standard security setup in McHughes, which is the SR equivalent of McDonalds.

3.) One simple thing that's effective is just to include a few advanced riflemen with your squads who delay their actions and then take full pool shots at the end of the given combat turn. This would simulate someone who is waiting for someone to pop his head up while under suppressive fire to take a single aimed shot. Very deadly.
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Teulisch
post May 31 2006, 10:01 PM
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do be aware of your corperate resources. and what you need to use what space for. chokepoints are limited by how much materials and personel i need to move past how often.

that said... in this modern age of wireless everything, it makes a LOT of sense to keep your most sensitive crap a few levels undreground. put a chokepoint just past the elevator. have security which is wired only, so you can hit a button and sound an alarm upstairs no matter WHAT the hacker has done to the computers and/or jamming.

if you have an elevator, say a bank of 4 opening onto a hallway. one end of the hallway is a wall (with hidden gun emplacement. the two side walls on the other end have gun enplacements as well, aimed into the nooks which provide cover from the first gun. can we say kill zone? now we just put the 'guts' of the maglock for the door into one of those nooks, and you see where the problem is.

also, motion sensors in the elevator shaft, ala oceans 11.
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Shrike30
post May 31 2006, 10:06 PM
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Elevators are also the shit because you can throw wards across elevator shafts. Nothing quite like a bunch of sustained or anchored spells getting smashed through (or against) a ward to get someone's attention.
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JesterX
post May 31 2006, 10:11 PM
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Closed Matrix System

Chokepoint with Floor/Elevator with weight limit, if the limit is exceeded, the doors closes, the alarm is triggered and mages begins to cast manabolts/stunbolts or similar spell on the characters from behind a bulletproof glass.
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Wounded Ronin
post May 31 2006, 10:58 PM
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Emo,

When you say "entrap", are you just looking for general ass whuppage? Or do you want a neat and clean TPC?

The reason is that if you're only going for generic ass whuppage you can always just be content to capture the least competent character who lets him or herself gets isolated. In my experience there's sometimes someone who isolates him/herself without realizing it; usually the person who creeps off to "snipe" away from the rest of the party, or the person who goes berzerk and tries to tank through the front door.

If that character gets captured you can have a lot of in character fun because the rest of the party often feels like saving someone who acted foolishly isn't worth it. I had a situation where the bad guys were holding the PC sniper hostage and the rest of the party simply lit up the sniper along with the bad guys because they were disgusted with him. Pretty hilarious, actually.
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Voran
post May 31 2006, 11:38 PM
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I guess it also depends on what degree of metagaming matches up with in game knowledge. Its obviously possible to custom tailor a trap based on char-sheet abilities. A little more info on setting would be useful before I start making suggestions, as there are different approaches for facility vs non-facility approaches. One of the more annoying things (as a playerchar, not as a player) I've encountered is the "Safehouse that...isn't". A safehouse that you think is safe but has actually been tampered with to shut you in panic-room style and pumped with KO gas. Alternately, but less likely 'nowadays' with rigger connection to their vehicles, is the "We've taken remote control of your Batmobile" approach.
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Wounded Ronin
post May 31 2006, 11:46 PM
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I agree that total metagaming where the bad guys automatically control your vehicle is rather unsatisfying. I think it's OK for the bad guys to have compromised your safe house *if* there's a way they reasonably could have gotten that information. Perhaps they were able to find one of your contacts whom you sold their hot technology to and they beat him up to get your safehouse location. But it is no fun for anyone if the bad guys just magically know where your safehouse is.

That being said I think there's really no need for extreme metagaming of that type. A lot of times it's the PCs being careless in some way that lets them dig their own graves. (Eg. a character type who compulsively sneaks off alone to "snipe" at the bad guys without realizing that this just means all the bad guys will open fire on him and him alone.)
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Voran
post May 31 2006, 11:53 PM
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I agree with the careless PC thing, also, following the thread that asked about IC relationships, mining that sorta stuff makes for wonderful traps. Nab the guy when he's visiting his joygirl or kid sister or brother or mom or heck, even the standbys of grabbing him on the way to a fixer or other contact.
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Lindt
post Jun 1 2006, 12:48 AM
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And its so easy... hack a home telecomm, or cell phone, and bam, so much info to be had. SSG has great info for this.
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Voran
post Jun 1 2006, 01:57 AM
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QUOTE (Lindt)
And its so easy... hack a home telecomm, or cell phone, and bam, so much info to be had. SSG has great info for this.

Indeed which why its still useful in SR4 to go 'current day' (2006) setups for your houses, as opposed to taking the quick route and linking up everything. Sure it requires a little more active effort on your part, but at least your toaster oven isn't going to turn you in, or spy on you.
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Enigma
post Jun 1 2006, 05:46 AM
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I have a favourite SWAT response. This works best in your standard office block setup where an alarm is tripped, usually in a high-security place where they have something worth keeping. When the alarm is tripped, steel roll-doors cover all elevator doors and fire doors on the floor the alarm went off on, and all the fire doors lock and elevator doors refuse to open and elevators don't arrive at that floor. A voice alert system tells all workers to go to their office and lock the door.

The SWAT team turns up on the floor. The team stays in the fire stairs and a voice announcement tells all works to go to fire door X and present their ID. The SWAT people make each person come through the fire door one at a time and verify their ID with a portable DNA scanner, and weapon scan them as well. All persons who get through are taken down one floor, stuck in a lift and secured somewhere for later further checks and cavity searching.

The floor then gets cleared. Normal (not IR smoke) is deployed from vents along with pepper punch spray if you're feeling especially nasty. The SWAT people clear the floor whilst each wearing form-fitting or other armour with the thermal dampening option (and chem seal if you're using pepper punch). They move in teams of four, one of the four having a white noise generator at level six or better, and others having concussion grenades for all large/suspicious rooms. The teams operate on thermo vision and taser everyone on sight, then secure them.

This means that the players will have a bastard of a time sneaking out with the minions of the corporation. If they stay behind and try to fight they are trying to see through smoke. If they use thermo then the SWAT people can't be seen because they have thermal dampening, but they can certainly see the runners. The runners can't use ultrasound because of the white noise generators.

For extra nastiness, have them use capsule rounds containing pepper punch and use nausea gas. The runners will be on such huge modifiers they won't be able to move, let alone fight back - on a bad day they could be on up to +14 modifiers (+6 smoke, +5 pepper punch, +3 nausea gas).
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Toptomcat
post Jun 1 2006, 06:23 PM
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Don't rely on chokepoints too heavily. Our GM tried to trap us in one chokepoint heavily guarded by hellhounds, remote automatic weapons and a few drones, but because he'd tried the single-checkpoint trick once too often we saw it coming and blasted the whole thing to Hell with a satchel charge prepared specificially for the purpose.
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Vaevictis
post Jun 1 2006, 09:01 PM
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QUOTE (Toptomcat @ Jun 1 2006, 01:23 PM)
Don't rely on chokepoints too heavily.  (... snipped stuff about character's cleverer than the GM ;) )

Well, it's fine and dandy that your characters used their brain; that's good. The fact is, almost all security systems beyond a certain grade are going to use choke points. Think about it; air port security, court house security, military base security, ALL of them use choke points to varying degrees. Some will have multiple layers of choke points.

Most have a relatively soft interior once you get past the choke points, but often will have choke points between areas in the interior.

The fact is, if a single satchel charge is sufficient to disable all opposition in the choke point, then somebody designed the choke point wrong, or you were up against an inferior target. A good choke point won't actually have anything for you to hit with that satchel charge until the trap is already sprung, at which point the satchel charge converts YOU to chunky salsa as well. If your main point was that you were able to use the charge to blow open the door, well, that's easy enough to address by having two blast doors in succession ;)

For a strong choke point design, I recommend:

1. Double blast doors equipped with vehicle shock security systems (try using Electronics B/R or attaching explosives to that door!)
2. Armored walls with Ares Sentinel-P's behind them with murder holes in appropriate locations; these are armed with Ares Alphas with superflash grenades.
3. Flash-Paks in the walls.
4. Gas vents that vent neurostun, hyper, nausea gas and smoke, but do *not* provide egress, so that the gas lingers.
5. At least one machine gun enfilading the entire choke point doing supressive fire (properly designed, the supressive fire will hit everyone in the choke point) with gel rounds for increased knockdown effect.
6. ... and a few yards beyond the choke point (if they do manage to get past), a more or less invisible monofilament wire trap.
7. ... and a few yards beyond THAT, security forces. :)

... and that's just the physical security. Ideally, you want wards and spirits and fiber optic cable for magical security. Dual natured critters < spirits, but will do in a pinch.

Obviously, remove elements to suit the power levels of your characters.

(a single satchel charge will NOT take care of that, I promise)
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Tarantula
post Jun 1 2006, 09:11 PM
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QUOTE (Enigma)
I have a favourite SWAT response. This works best in your standard office block setup where an alarm is tripped, usually in a high-security place where they have something worth keeping. When the alarm is tripped, steel roll-doors cover all elevator doors and fire doors on the floor the alarm went off on, and all the fire doors lock and elevator doors refuse to open and elevators don't arrive at that floor. A voice alert system tells all workers to go to their office and lock the door.

The SWAT team turns up on the floor. The team stays in the fire stairs and a voice announcement tells all works to go to fire door X and present their ID. The SWAT people make each person come through the fire door one at a time and verify their ID with a portable DNA scanner, and weapon scan them as well. All persons who get through are taken down one floor, stuck in a lift and secured somewhere for later further checks and cavity searching.

The floor then gets cleared. Normal (not IR smoke) is deployed from vents along with pepper punch spray if you're feeling especially nasty. The SWAT people clear the floor whilst each wearing form-fitting or other armour with the thermal dampening option (and chem seal if you're using pepper punch). They move in teams of four, one of the four having a white noise generator at level six or better, and others having concussion grenades for all large/suspicious rooms. The teams operate on thermo vision and taser everyone on sight, then secure them.

This means that the players will have a bastard of a time sneaking out with the minions of the corporation. If they stay behind and try to fight they are trying to see through smoke. If they use thermo then the SWAT people can't be seen because they have thermal dampening, but they can certainly see the runners. The runners can't use ultrasound because of the white noise generators.

For extra nastiness, have them use capsule rounds containing pepper punch and use nausea gas. The runners will be on such huge modifiers they won't be able to move, let alone fight back - on a bad day they could be on up to +14 modifiers (+6 smoke, +5 pepper punch, +3 nausea gas).

Quick question... what if the system detects a fire? Smoke detectors and the like? Does the fire prevention side (water sprinklers in the ceiling) go off and the fire doors unlock? What if an alarm is tripped afterwards? (Could've been someone working late, saw a fire, pulled the alarm and then ran for the stairs). If the alarm locks down the stairways anyway, theres going to be a stink about that. "Todays state of the art security system in XYZ's corp building today killed a father of 5 today when the firestairs were sealed off as he ran to escape a blaze caused by a faulty coffee maker."
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Calvin Hobbes
post Jun 1 2006, 09:20 PM
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Likewise, really insanely locked down buildings could be used against you by a rogue decker. "Uh oh, security's after my boys. I lock them into a specific section."
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Vaevictis
post Jun 1 2006, 09:25 PM
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QUOTE (Calvin Hobbes)
Likewise, really insanely locked down buildings could be used against you by a rogue decker. "Uh oh, security's after my boys. I lock them into a specific section."

Yeah, but as a rule, if the decker gets access to your systems, you're already hosed.
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