Horrible villain ideas Options

[Thane36425]

The descriptions of Theif 2 and Hitman 2 are basically how you would play a less than lethal game, but using gel rounds, narcojets and magic. If you have to drop a guard, you took aim and dropped with a couple of well placed rounds, then bound and gagged them. Also, unlike those games, you can ambush them and make them surrender. Most guards, when walking their route and finding themselves staring down the barrels of a runner team would surrender rather than draw. Keep in mind the professional rating too: there is a threshold of damage where they will give up, one way or the other.

Its true that gel rounds don't work as well on armor, which is why they are used on the typical sec guard who is probably not outfitted in full combat armor. As I pointed out, when the opposition gets serious, the real bullets start flying. Again, remember the professional rating: those people will have them too and will give up if wounded to a certain degree.

The point is not that the guards will use nonlethals back duing a fight but is more of a strategic plan. No, the guards won't take the time to notice they are being fired at with nonlethals and that they will change to the same loads. Rather it is message to the corporations and the Johnsons that your team is capable of restraint and isn't just a murder machine. Tactically it won't make a difference, but strategically in terms of getting jobs and easing payback from the corps, it would help.

[Thane36425]

I should also point out that there would be work for boths kinds of teams. Stealthy, restrained teams would be favored for certain kinds of jobs and killers teams for others. There is also no real reason that a team can't switch hats depending on the mission or the target they are against. As I have pointed out, my teams don't use as much restraint against Aztechnology or gangs as they would against others, and they use very little when doing bounty missions like against toxic shaman or other threats.

[nezumi]

The question of lethal vs. non-lethal force has been hotly debated elsewhere, and I think Kage has made some excellent points why a professional team who wants to stay out of jail will use lethal force. In short, if you use gel rounds, you will be less effective in combat (since armor resists gel rounds and narcojets generally have limited range and take longer to take effect), more likely to leave witnesses (and I don't think the corp will say 'well, we have full descriptions of them, but they were awfully nice, so we'll let them go), and just as likely to get shot and killed in return. As WR pointed out, even though non-lethal methods are available right now, they're almost never used successfully in crime for good reason. If you're at the point where you need to shoot, shoot to kill.

That said, even if you DO choose to somehow hold human life as valuable (you fool you), the fact remains that you are stealing as a profession. Not as a call to some higher meaning, not to stop some wicked group from doing terrible things, but because some guy you met in a seedy bar paid you cash to go and swipe this thing.

[Thane36425]

In Sr, there are more ways to leave a trail than just physical witnesses. There are all the security cameras (and not just cameras in the compound, by 2070 they will probably be everywhere), DNA from stray flakes of skin, astral signitures, etc. A team can be followed away by spirits or drones.

We don't really have nonlethal analogs to all the options in SR. There are no gel rounds, aside from the ones for shotguns, tranquilizers darts are avaiable but they take minutes to have effect rather than being instant like Narcojet, and of course we don't have magic. Today, most times when weapons are used in crime they are used to intimidation and casualties are rarely inflicted, street level crime being the exception.

If you look at the real crimes that go down with lethal force, like an armored car robbery where the sec men are killed, it is a sensation in the media and the police go all out to catch the attackers. The backstories in SR show much the same thing. If runners pull a bloody job, the press howls about it and Lone Star and the others turn up the heat and the corps will send hit teams after the runners, or hire them through intermediaries to run a suicide mission.

But again, if one group wants to play a bloody campaign, let them. If someone else wants to play a less brual one, let them.

[Drraagh]

That's the thing with Shadowrun compared to RL. In Shadowrun they have a large number of ways to be non-lethal and most importantly ways to keep yourselves hidden. Disguise kits to disguise your appearance, some magical aid can help there as well. Then you've got the things other than gel rounds, which include knockout gas, splat glue to keep them trapped in place, not to mention that you can just ambush them and then knock them out with the butt of your gun. Again, magic spells can knock these people out as well or just mess with their brains to not think you were there.

And sure, perhaps your group is out there to steal item X from Corp Y for Person Z, but even then, you don't have to become a killer to get what you want. Think of the ninja of Ancient Japan; you didn't know who was a ninja because they were masters of disguise and by the time you saw one, it was too late.

For DNA traces, there's stuff like Sterilze spells and also the fact that if your fake SIN(s) don't link to your DNA, they don't have anything to go on with that. Being seen, has already been covered some, but let's also include some stage acting like has been done in movies (ie: lifts in your shoes to make you look taller, maybe you walk with a limp or talk with a lisp, or maybe you're just a 'specially challenged' custodial engineer). All those things would leave a false description and make it that much harder to track you as well.

So, sure, you left witnesses, but what are they going to say? It was a five foot eight white guy with red hair and a beard. He looked to be about two hundred pounds. In actuallity, your character is five four, one fourty with black hair and no beard. Or, maybe they were focusing somewhere else (movies like Snake Eyes, where what you see isn't exactly what you got), or there was a distraction (I once read a news article about a purse snatching; all that the victim remembered is that the thief was bare naked).

[Fix-it]

OMG THAT NEW SECURITY GUARD GUY WE JUST HIRED JUST COLAPSED WE NEED A MEDIC

*PBX re-routed*

Decker: "DocWagon Emergency services..."

[nezumi]

Rather than further derailing this thread, I recommend you search for threads on the topic or make your own. The subject of this thread is horrible villain ideas. The subject of lethality could span pages and pages, and has little to do with villains.

[Ravor]

Although I haven't had the chance to actually use it yet, I've always been fond of the idea of a serial killer that used BTL chips to make others commit murder/suicide while wearing Simrigs to later 'relive' the experience via BTL.

As an added twist, perhaps both of the victims are equiped with Simrigs whenever possilbe and the 'experience chips' play both BTL tracks at the same time.

[Ravor]

Also, if/when I run that idea I'll also use the The Serial Murder Resource Center from an old Pyramid Article.

[ Spoiler ]

For those who don't subscribe to Pyramid, basically it is a Think-Tank that was started in good faith to help law enforcement and possibly 'cure' serial killers. But was later corrupted in the name of study, and is now run by Serial Killers with the aim of helping other killers escape by framing an innocent whenever possible.

[nezumi]

As far as I can tell, the "The Serial Murder Resource Center" by Pyramid Online is a GURPS supplement of some sort by James Cambias. Not that I'm saying it's not useful, I'd love to see it if you dig it up.

[Sahandrian]

Here's an awful one.

A free spirit with the true name "Schrödinger", and the hidden life power. The subject of the hidden life is a cat, which is kept securely in a small box, in an abandoned building somewhere in the barrens.

[Kesslan]

Well we could allways 'rescue' little timmy from wells and such you know to be evil.

*Bark Bark!*

What's that Lassie? Timmy fell down a well?

*Bark!*

Lead on!

*Bark Bark Bark!* (Dog runs over to the well with you following)

Hey Timmy you down there?

Timmy: *Sniffle!* Yes! I fell trying to reach the bucket!

Runner: Dont worry Timmy you'll soon be free!

*Runner pulls out silenced pistol, Shoots dog*

Runner:! Help is on the way! *throws the dogs corpse down the well*

Timmy: LASSIE! NOOOOOOOO!!!!

Runner: *Tosses an incidary grenade down the well* Hey Timmy? CATCH!

Timmy: TEH FIRE! I BURRRNNNS! AAAAAAA!!!! *Crispifies*

Runner: *Walks away chuckling evily.*

[Angelone]

For years I've been trying to think of a feasible way to convert the Puppetmaster from the movies to Shadowrun. The best I could come up with is have spirits or elementals possess the dolls, but that seems kinda off.

[hyzmarca]

[Kesslan]

[ShadowDragon8685]

[hyzmarca]

[Ravor]

[Sahandrian]

[Moirdryd]