SOP for the meet. Options

[djinni]

this is kinda a "what does the "average" shadowrunning group go through to ensure their safe during a meet with the johnson?"
but more I'm looking for pointers since our GM is making us micromanage everything, we have to specifically ask every single little tiny detail question otherwise we don't know it.
any pointers for pointed questions to ask would be nice.

we have a group of five, a face who is the only meat body to attend the meet.
a hacker specialized in hacking, who attends wireless link
a hacker who specializes in rigging drones, who eavesdrops wirelessly, maintaining secuity outside with drones.
and a gun toting looney that infiltrates teh meeting area as an unrelated patron.

I can't ask him "what kind of security is there." I have to be more direct in my questions, any help would be appreciated.
(btw this is a new style we are trying out to see how it works, trying to make all the meets the same so if he ambushes us later we as players won't see it coming)

[Vaevictis]

Two words: Claymore Mines.

:D

"Hey, buddy. See this box on my chest? It's a claymore mine. You know what that is? A directional mine. If I blow this sucker, it's going to break all my ribs and put me in a world of hurt. You? Well, I'm facing you, so it's going to turn you into chunky salsa if I detonate it. Don't mess with me." :D

[Lovesmasher]

A reporter branches out from the 6 obvious and essential questions:

Who - What - Where - When - Why - How

What is the job. Mr. Johnson will usually volunteer this information.

Why, in Shadowrun is usually answered by a number. specifically, this is how much you'll get paid. That breaks down into Advance and Completion. How much do I get up front and how much do I get when we're finished. This needs to exceed your costs or it's not a job worth doing. If you can get your costs covered by the advance, you'll do fine.

When should this whole thing happen? Hopefully it's not immediately or as soon as possible. Immediately means it's exceptionally dangerous if only because there's no time to plan. This means you need to either not take the job or ask for more money in advance. My advice is a lot more. The longer you have to prepare, the more likely you are to have a successful plan that goes beyond kick the door in and kill everyone. As soon as possible is often worse than immediately because when you deem soon and when Mr. Johnson deems soon will more than likely not mesh well.

Where covers pick-up and delivery of anything that needs to be transported, stolen, kidnapped, destroyed or whathaveyou. Make sure you know both the beginning where and end where before you start anything. If Mr. Johnson won't tell you the end where before the mission starts, you need to ask for more money in advance.

How encompasses special directions. Most often Mr. Johnson won't want you to level the building that contains the computers that hold the information he wants stolen. Sometimes he will. This is a good time to find out if you're allowed to kill anyone or blow things up. If Mr. Johnson requests killing someone or blowing things up, you need to ask for more money in advance. If Mr. Johnson insists on you not killing anyone or blowing things up, you need to ask for a LOT of money at completion.

Who are the parties involved. Most often the only parties involved that you need to worry about are your team members. Other 'who's to worry about are targets to avoid, known security personelle and acceptable losses. Too many whos and you need to ask for more money.

[Eleazar]

I don't understand why you wouldn't be able to ask him a question like, "What kind of security is there." Are you playing in some parallel universe where all logic and reason are thrown out the window? Why wouldn't a Johnson tell you the type of security? Any Johnson would be willing give out this information as it will only help ensure the victory of the shadowrunner team. Unless of course he is setting you up. Mr. Johnsons are some some AI with a pilot rating 3 that are completely incapable of answering one the most specific and direct questions. What I would advise you do is have a list of some 80-100 questions that are as direct and specific as possible. I think then maybe your GM might get a clue.

Serbitar's Guide to Paranoia v1.3 has some great tips. He has 5 things listed you should ask and almost every Johnson would be willing to give out.

"1. The kind of job (extraction, observation, demolition ...)
2. The average threat level
3. Time contraints
4. Estimated number of people needed
5. Special focal points (matrix, magical, vehicle)"

Serbitar goes on to say:
"He should know this and give you all the information above. If he doesn't, you'd better run. In the worst case his head will explode in the next ten seconds and Damien Knight will pop out to spank you. In the best case he is just very new in the business and doesn't do his homework. Not a very good situation where your life may depend on the information you get."

[Charon]

It's just the meet.

Even if your Johnson is out to screw you, he wouldn't do it at the meet, he'd do it through the run itself.

The only reason you'd get ambushed at the meet itself is if the guy who set up the meet is out for revenge and can't wait for the whole team to be present before he goes batshit crazy in a public place. Not very likely.

In my experience, when there's violence at the meet it is 95% of the time to players fault.

So cut down in the ridiculous counter-security measure and save some for when it'll be useful and fun (metagame-wise)

---

Considering the above, I feel most of the team should be present. Perhaps even everybody. If there's really a trap, everyone needs to be within sight of the mage for counter-spelling purpose if everyone is to have a shot at surviving the first moments of the ambush.

But here's the thing ; Do your research. If you have reasons to believe the meet will be an ambush, don't show up. If you think you might get assaulted, you screwed up just by showing up.

But once you decide the meet is legit and opt to show up, do treat this like a meet and not a military operations. The objective here is to extract most information and establish a good working relation with Johnson who surely has other missions he could give you afterward.

Johnson isn't hiring a faceman, he's hiring a team. He wants to see a team. He wants to see for himself that everybody looks serious, can behave and doesn't look to be at each other's throat. He wants to see more than one person asking him pointed question to assure himself that there's some brain power and expertise spread amongst this crew instead of one slick talker and a bunch of slack jawed brute.

Meanwhile, most of the Johnson did not come ot the meet with a whole security detail. It would kinda go against the discretion and deniability factor. But amongst the few security measure he could take would be a jammer to insure communication security during the meet. Whoops. The one thing that drastically reduce the usefulness of having 4 other people playing james bond around the meet ; cutting the communications.

From a metagaming POV, it's also silly. All these precautions will require various stealth and hacking rolls. It's inevitable in the long run that poor rolls and glitches will screw up your preparation. Which is what edge is for. But do you really want to be using your edge at the meet?! Also it means a lot of game time will be dedicated to what should be a straightforward scene. As a player, this is not a very entertaining use for your time.


---


Your GM seems a bit anal retentive. Some leeway should allowed to the PCs who are supposed to be skilled and/or experienced.

This means that even though things like spotting a civilian packing heat isn't always on their mind, (i.e the PC isn't asking "Is he armed?" about every freaking NPC his character meets, thus forcing a legion of pointless rolls), it's something they should always have a chance of doing. Be it with the -2 modifier because they are distracted, they'd still have a fair shot of noticing with a good perception score.

[djinni]

[Eleazar]

Charon, you make me laugh. I don't know if you meant to be funny with with your third statement but that was great.

[kzt]

Given the awful security of any network link in SR I'd be really leery of doing any broadcasting of a meet.

You really don't want to explain the recording Joe Random hacker made when he forwards it to you target along with the video you so helpfully made showing you and the Johnson.

We typically wanted a site the either we could control or that had fairly effective security of it's own. The Space Needle restaurant (iirc) was used a few times, as it has effective security and if someone wanted to do you harm they can't exactly make a fast getaway.

If it was a club we'd research it ahead of time and see if there were any bad things that we should know about. For those public sites that we couldn't control we'd get there early and get a feel for the place. If we could get away with weapons we'd typically smuggle them in. If security was tight enough to keep us honest it should help keep the other side honest, as long as the management doesn't have it in for us.

In a meet in an open area (which we were not really very fond of) we'd try to set it at the last minute. Like no more than 20 minutes, with us choosing the location. This was typically only the case with post run deliveries, as we really didn't like meeting people we didn't know out in the middle of nowhere. For that matter, we didn't like meeting anyone on a pre-arranged meet in the middle of nowhere. It just didn't seem like a practice conducive to long life.

[PBTHHHHT]

Hell from some of the groups that I've played with, I wouldn't want the entire group to be there just on the basis of not wanting certain characters to talk to the Johnson and making us look unprofessional. To keep them busy, make them do the security/surveillance for the meet. ;-)

[Lovesmasher]

[djinni]

[Lovesmasher]

[KarmaInferno]

[Crusufix]

We have a group of

Hacker
Mage
Sam1, a True chromed Sam
Sam2, fancies himself a bodyguard, little noticeable cyber.
Rigger
Sam3, likes to remain human looking, only a little bit of noticeable cyber.

Our SOP for Meets is.

We setup the meet for some loud public place, indoors. Generally a bar of some sorts. When we get there We ask the J and his visible collegues to get in our Limo and take a ride with us. Only people at the meet are Face, Sam1, mage (in astral) and Rigger with a flight drone, Sam1 does the driving. Rigger hangs back 10 - 15 minutes to watch what goes on after the meat leaves.

We take him to another loud public place, quiet corner, indoors. Usually the Wiz Around the Corner, an Ex-runner owned meta-human pub (long story behind this place.. and the name).

Hacker meets wirelessly.
Mage meets Astrally.
Sam1 meets in meat.
Sam2 plays face.
Rigger meets via spider drone if he can (usually only allowed at the Wiz, unless we get creative)
Sam3 blends into the crowd, generally dancing.

Before the meet Hacker tries to infiltrate the camera systems of the real meet place (if it's the Wiz, we have an authentic user account!). If successful he feeds a few choice feeds to the sams ARs.

During the Meet, hacker ideally has read access to monitors for watching the whole place and meets wirelessly. Hacker tries to dig for all the information he can about the J and his collegues with him. This may include hacking the commlink of the J. He will also stay an extra hour or so after the meet.

Mage assenses the people at the meeting and those nearby. Looking specifically for any linked foci, active spells or spirit buddies.

Rigger, if he has inside drone, monitors the place, along with the hacker. If No drone inside, then Rigger monitors the place from a flight drone outside while meeting wirelessly.

Sam3 pretty much just watches the area inside, he doesn't even meet wirelessly. He only keeps contact with the Hacker. Sam3 Will usually stay an extra hour or two after the meet depending on how much fun he's having at the time.

Other Notes
-We never use names at a meet, any type of name.
-We never reveal how many are on the team.
-The two meats act like they are the only ones at the meet, never communicating directly with the Hacker, Mage, Rigger or Sam3, the others may communicate with them though, with the understanding it's a one way conversation excluding Sam3 who never contacts either one directly, he relays mostly through the Hacker.
-Face accepts any needed file transmissions, Nuyen exchanges, etc.
-Face does all the talking, with the ocassional input from Sam1. Sam1 watches whoever is with the J, not the J himself.
-Face and Sam1 run with their coms hidden. Sam3 runs with his usual com broadcast looking for playthings, actual message changes frequently.
-Sam3 figures the meet is bad if he doesn't get any play.. lol



Questions we usually ask
- What noticeable (perception test) weapons or cyber the J and his friends have.
- Are they running their comms hidden.
- Is there anyone in the crowd too interested in the meet.
- Anyone following us during the drive to the real meet.
- What happens at the original meet place after the meats have left (any vehicles start up nearby, any people looking confused or flustered. Any hurried activity of any sort.)
- Any active spells, foci or spirits with the J and his friends or perhaps another astral mage.
- Any change of emotion or aura (through mages assencing) during the meet.


I'm sure there are more questons we ask, but Not off the top of my head.

[Lagomorph]

Here's some helpful information:

1. Johnsons are kept in the dark, they know very little
2. What ever a Johnson does know, he'll lie about
3. Some times they lie by saying I don't know when they do know.

THe result is that you can't ever trust the words coming out of a Johnson's mouth. They're such lying bastards that they don't even tell you what they really want you to do. And if they're trying to pay you, don't accept any money because then it's a trap.

So when he says to steal a prototype from mitsuhama in seattle, he really means to assassinate a prominent figure from ares in bellevue. If you do this he'll be really happy, you can tell because of the loud voice he'll have. So will your GM, he'll have the same happy loud voice. :D

Sarcasm aside, meets I think tend to depend heavily on the style of the GM, ours is a bastard, so we really don't ever listen to what the Johnson wants because he'll cut his estimate of security by 50%, tell us that they have no idea we're coming (they do), and that they're poorly armed (they aren't). If your GM is a fairly nice guy, you may not need all the security, if you do need the security like we do, it's probably not even worth it to be contacted by the Johnson because he's just out to screw you anyway.

[PBTHHHHT]

[KarmaInferno]

[Marmot]

[Lovesmasher]

If possible, PM me a link and gimme credit so I can brag to my gaming group :-P

[Lagomorph]

[djinni]

[Lovesmasher]

[Serbitar]

[djinni]

[Charon]