[X] My Assistant

[Fortune]

[Dim Sum]

Some years ago, I was running an introductory SR campaign for a bunch of newbie players as a favour to a friend of mine in London.

Four players: two physical adepts and two samurais - all came from the hack-n-slash school of gaming and weren't confident of trying out anything else (like deckers, riggers, mages/shamans, etc.), which was cool. I was just going to run them through a simple retrieval job for them to get a feel for the mechanics and mood of the game.

The run was a simple break-in into a Lone Star vehicle impound facility. All four of them were provided with genuine uniforms and passes to get into the facility. They were to retrieve a particular car and just drive out. The two adepts went in while the two sammies decided to stay in the fairly large guardhouse at the gate (the only entrance/exit to the facility) "to keep an eye on the cops there and ensure that their escape route would not be cut off. The guardhouse was octagonal, had a circular control console island, in the middle of which sat two cops.

The adepts botched when a cop surprised them trying to break into the car (instead of just asking for the keys) and they attacked the cop (instead of talking their way out of it). Alarms went off. The cops at the guardhouse still had no reason to suspect that the sammies were anything other than legit cops till one of the sammies draws an SMG and let's one of the cops have it. The other cop immediately dived over the console and returned fire. The sammie with the SMG gets hit and proceeds to get bogged down in a raging firefight around and over this island console inside the guardhouse.

The sammie then notices that his buddy is not helping him and discovers why: the other sammie is crouched down trying to assemble his sniper rifle out of his bag because that's his highest firearm proficiency!!! He finishes assembling the rifle just as his buddy geeks the cop. The adepts have meanwhile managed to get the car going and are driving out under a hail of fire - by the time the car reaches the gate, it's so shot up that it makes it about 5-10m out of the facility before the whole thing collapses. Other cops start surrounding the guardhouse and firing tear gas in. The wounded sammie with the SMG makes a run for it and gets gunned down. Sammie with the sniper rifle refuses to surrender so the cops just pour in more tear gas and flashbang grenades before moving. The adepts escaped with serious wounds. :D

There was a stunned silence after all this happened (took about 20-30 minutes of play from start to finish) before one of them said, "Kewl. Let's do that again."

[Morphling The Pr...]

We've had some screw ups, but this was the only one where anyone actually died, rather than getting pulled out by his buds.
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Mission: Go into an Ares building, retrieve a expiremental non-deadly weapon, copy the associated files, destroy the original data, find a particular scientist, capture him and leave.

Runners:

Changling Mage
Otaku
Human Mage
Assassin
Interrogator
Sammy
Vehicle Rigger
Other Guy (don't remember him exactly)


Plan:

Assassin (being less kick ass than the other 4, he thought) gets job at electronic store in public mall in building. On break, he gets Okatu in and he does his work. Once he does his thing, Changling Mage, Human Mage, Interrogator and Sammy go in under magical disquise. They mop up, sneak around, search the floor, get the goods, and get out. Rigger waits in an ambulance to take them out.

Problem 1: Changling player didn't show up. The other mage didn't have any decent illusions. So, they had to get business suits and have the Otaku send the elevator around where they need to go. So, they get radios and suits for a few thousand more; it's an acceptable expense. That, and we didn't have a way to get the guy out if he was out cold. No biggie yet.

Problem 2: Paranoid of blowing his cover, the assassin, when put into the storage room his work for the day, worries that if the Otaku comes in, he might not get into the back. Fortunately, a few early morning calls re-established the plan; send the two guys to lunch, then call the Otaku when he watches the storefront. So, the plan moves back a few hours. No biggie.

Getting the Otaku in goes without a hitch. Cameras looped, slaves under control. The men get to the elevator, suited up, and looking quite professional. When asked of thier purpose, they say they are expected upstairs. DING, elevator opens.

Problem 3: They split up. Interrogator and Sammy go up to the scientist's living quarters, to make sure nothing important is up there, and see if he is there. Human Mage and Other Guy go down to begin clearing out the floor.

The interrogator and Sammy find nothing useful, no one they want to find, and head downstairs.

Problem 4: The Mage and Other Guy hit the 10th basement floor, and are asked for ID. The mage replies with, "Are you sure you aren't confused?" And tries to cast Mass Confusion. He totally screws it up, and no one is confused. The guards open up a can. Other Guy uses the Hand Of God instantly. The Mages takes a serious and dives behind the rim of the elevator wall. They manage to shut the door, and frantically call the Otaku to send them one floor up; they aren't going to give this up yet. Meanwhile, Interrogator and Sammy were heading to down the 10th basement floor. They Other Guy places a timed explosive in the elevator, and when they get out on the 9th, he tells the Otaku to send it back down. Forunately, he also has the foresight to send the Interrogator to the 9th as well.

Blam! Death. Kewl.

Problem 5: The Interrogator cannot roll a damn success. Rolling 7 dice, sometimes 14 if he was feeling adventurous, he gets ONE guy with his Ruger over the course of a few rounds. He takes a serious wound and a moderate wound. That's right, 9 boxes. He finds the mage and the Other Guy. The mage gets cross-ventilated before him, and the other guy was already dead. Interrogator and took this as his cue, to say, "I'm getting out." He calls the Otaku to open the door to the elevator. With a massive quickness and Hydralic Jacks, he springs into the elevator, and escapes further injury. Sammy makes it in right behind him, just as the doors close.

Fortunately for the interrogator, he had a Doc Wagon contract, and they are waiting for him. Leaping for his life, he plows into the back of the open REAL ambulance, as Sammy hops into the fake one.

The otaku walks out of the back, and gives the assassin a look. They mutually shake heads, and leave separately.
-------
(ala Richard Dreyfuss)

Asimov, the interrogator, survived his injuries and escaped the Doc Wagon hospital to elude Lone Star. Though he never officially left, he made himself scarce when the group needed his specialty most. He made himself quite unwelcome because opf that, but grudges are not worth harboring towards your commerades.

Jackson, the sammy, recovered quickly, but soon met a conflict of interest with the other members of the troupe. Rather than risk being killed by 6 people who he knows are ready, willing and able to kill him, he went underground. No one has heard from him since.

The vehicle rigger (whose name fails me) kept the ambulance, but never used it again. He make an interesting team with a Troll weilding a bat, but gave up the career to begin street racing. He was later killed in a head on collision.

Johnny 'Strange,' the changling, was chided for failing to do his part of the mission, even though it was his plan initially. He apologized, and was forgiven. He gave up running after falling in love with a Policlubber, and they both changed each other's views on life. They were murdered in a home invasion.

Tarou, the Otaku, still works with us. He's made friends and lost them, but he's endured the great hardships better than the average 12 year old.

And the assassin, well, that'd be me. I'm still here.
--------------------
like the bone under my skin
like actors in a photograph
like paper in the wind

[Maxwell Silverha...]

Heh, A runner team I was on Helped FastJack get into a facility, to get a data steel. Then we tried to doublecross him and steel the data for ourselves when we found out how valuable it was.... Never double cross a God level decker and fail.

We didn't get that data, and hadn't even made it to a bolt house before every Lone Star Officer, and corp Goon in seatle was looking for us for crimes ranging White collar Corporate embezzling to, operation of a kindergarten prostitution ring.. The caracters were quietly retired to a supermax detention facility for the next 500 years or so..

[TinkerGnome]

Geeze, who thought it was a bright idea to doublecross FastJack?

[Traks]

Well, everyone have heard story of my players killing guard with 10 shots in the head :)

So gotta write another run they botched.

Players:
Full Mage - mediocre player, nothing that catches eye
Sammie - combat monster with heavy weapon
Face - the only player who tries to plan, and no one in team listens to him
Two more fighter types.

They receive task to take out yakuza warehouse, which they use for shipping in and redistribution of narcotics. Ok, team drives near during the night and wait for yakuza bus. Then all players scream: I shoot the bus, including heavy weapon guy. So much for subtlety. Heavy weapon guy and mage run to burning bus and steal each couple of packets with "goodies". While another player throws grenade in the bus to destroy it completely.
Then they drive away (everyone forgot that they should take out warehouse not just bus) and call to boss to say that job is done. After hearing that their job was very different, they drive back (Lone Star was bought to arrive only in morning) and create "great plan". Team divides and drives from both sides to attack the warehouse simultaneously. Now, first team tries to approach from right side to warehouse and of course their car is under fire. They drive further back and start shooting with grenade launcher. Meanwhile team two arrives from left side and near corner start talking loudly via cellphone. Enemies got hearing amplification, so surprise surprise - grenade rolls under Face's feet. Face loses leg (well, it was deadly wound, but I let it slip this time) and mage - which did not suffer from blast being further away, refuses to heal him - You know, he is all bloody, I will not dirty my clothes. Then he proceeds to corner. Yakuzas have packed everything and are leaving, driving near the corner where mage is. Team 1 shoots another grenade, which misses bus (extreme range) and rolls near the mage. Mage survives and yakuzas leave. Then ambulance called by mage arrives and takes wounded heavy weapon guy, Face and mage.
But mage forgot that he left his car with narcotics near this mess. So, early in the morning Lone Star arrives and puts security on their doors, interrogating them. Also they let know that their chances to survive are very low if they do not cooperate. Team gets out mage (they thought he was valuable enough), and in ruckus Sammie leaves by himself. The only one who stays is Face (you can't run without leg, can you?) and gets perforated by yakuza shortly after that.

[Sahandrian]

A short one I just recalled. The rigger/gun bunny Phaeton was at fault here, though he blames me to this day.

The adept, the shaman, and the NPC gunslinger (along to keep them in line) were trying to get into a small Novatech facility using Levitate, Invisibility, and whatever roof access they could find. Phaeton wanted to go back to his place and get his guns first, but the team was in a hurry, so the gunslinger told him he could try to catch up later.

But he ran into a few problems on the way back (lots of red lights, etc), mainly due to spending the meet arguing with the shaman and her good friend the NPC decker. Don't annoy deckers. So, by the time he shows up, they're already on the roof, and he doesn't want to spend the time looking for a way up. So he parks his bike up the street (I already talked him out of parking it in front of the target building, in an alley next to the building, or in an alley across the street from the building) and heads down there.

He then proceeds to break into a side door using the grenade launcher on his Ares Alpha.

Now, normal guards he wouldn't have had trouble with. But they knew that a hit on this facility was expected. And I had also been hinting the whole time that a very well-known and dangerous mercenary team (the Devilkin, a human mage, two orks, and two trolls) had been hired to watch the facility for the time being because of this.

He winds up in a firefight with one of the orks (the far, far more dangerous of the two) and between the constant yells from him and some stupid decisions, he nearly gets killed. Though, I only the ork opponent single actions, reduced the ork's initiative, and gave Phaeton extra dice and bonus (nonexistant) TN-reducing mods (it was an online game so I was rolling for everyone), so in the end he won, barely.

The rest would take a while to explain... But in the end he wound up spending the rest of the run sitting in an alley.

[Kesh]

We were playing Queen Euphoria, and at this point we were hired to kidnap Euphoria from her penthouse suite.

Of course, the place is heavily guarded and locked down tight. Guards everywhere, bulletproof glass, even reinforced walls to prevent someone blowing their way into the penthouse. The place was a fraggin' vault.

Eventually, we decide the only way to get in was by disguising ourselves as security guards. The trouble started when our sammy refused to go along. I can't remember if it was an honor-code thing, or if he just didn't feel like sneaking around. Anyway, he separated from the rest of us and went straight up to the penthouse. Basically knocked on the door, tried to grab her and got knocked cold by the bodyguards. They locked him in a room while waiting for building security, because of how cybered he was.

In a way, that worked for us. We proceeded up to the penthouse, and claimed to be the building security unit! Unfortunately, whoever was doing the talking failed their rolls, and the bodyguards called our bluff. So, things get ugly, shots get fired, etc.

That's when the street sam wakes up and hears the commotion. He busts down the door with his enhanced strength and then makes the announcement that will haunt my dreams.

"I pull out the grenade I keep in the hidden compartment of my cyberleg, and throw it into the room!"

...

Yes, a grenade inside a reinforced room. I've never seen the 'chunky salsa effect' used to such a degree in my life.

By the rules, everyone in the room was hamburger, including Euphoria. The GM decided to be nice though, and ruled that the floor gave way under the pressure, so we were all just in the hospital for several weeks instead of dead.

[Kagetenshi]

Well, we've got a wonderful story, but it seems that the main subject doesn't want me to share.
Anyone else have any thoughts on the subject?

(Yes, whether I tell the story or not, I will make you suffer :vegm: )

~J

[Dun Fe'Ran]

OK-it's really starting to pique my interest now. If we were to vote, I'd say spill the beans. :D

[Zazen]

[Lorka]

Well it was a semi botched run last night, but worth mentioning here i think.

The team have been doing some complex stuff lately, working for Vampires and Bioweapon terrorist, so I thought they should have a 'break' and do a easy run.

I choose to start them on Brainscan (I am more or less convinced they will choose the wrong side in the conflict later on).

As Brainscan is a official product i will put spoiler tags on.

The team for the night:
Dwarf Mage: He is a bit of a coward, but often save the team with a spell or two, have a tendency to think everything can be solved by using Control Thoughts.
Samurai Decker: He can deck, fight with a sword and use skillwires for everything else.
Sniper PI: Find a roof top and snipe everything that moves. His motto is: "every run have a fire-fight and a run in with Lone Star" - and it often comes true when he is on the team.

[ Spoiler ]

The team are to meet with someone in Palace of China - a night club for the young and (semi-)rich corpers.

The Palace of China have a minor bias against Trolls so I have some trolls make a fuss at the entrance with one Troll grapping hold of the Sniper PI and insisting to be let in when this human can just cut in front of the line.
The Sniper tell the rest of the team to go on in, he will take care of the troll (no reason to let the bouncer deal with it, right *sigh*).
He take convince the troll he can let him in using a back entrance. At this point I am sure he will shoot the troll - and that will really frag it up fast, so I make sure that the Sniper PI understands there is noway he can do this without someone seeing it.
He kill the Troll anyway (by blowing his legs off with two burst of from Ruger Tunderbolt), and make a run for it.

The run is simple go into an unmanned geatronics powerstation and upload some software, at 12 a clock the same night. They have to make sure they go undiscovered.

The powerstation is located in a part of Tacoma thats nice and where kids can play on the street even after dark. I decide that these city blocks have a chainlink fence around to keep the rabble out, with gates manned with one rent-a-cop.

Instead of driving in trying to convince the guard they are visiting someone there or just walking in under invisibility they decide they need to hijack a geatronics service van.
They decides to use Control Thought on the driver and thus have no problem hijacking the van - as i said I would make it easy on them - now instead of keeping the driver under control they bind and gag him, and bust up the GPS and some other electronics.
I then tell them that the Geatronics station call the van and ask if there is a problem, they decide not to bother talking to them and bust up the radio aswell.
In other words they are now driving a hijacked Geatronics Van thats wanted by geatronic security and Lone Star.
The Sniper PI is driving with the others invisible in the back, also remember that the Sniper PI is already wanted by Lone Star for the Troll shooting and I made sure the rest of the team overheard some witness giving a good description of him.

They arrive at the gate and let the rent-a-cop go into the toll both and check if they are allowed inside. The rent-a-cop finds out the van is wanted and hides in his booth.

The mage and decker sneaks in while the Sniper PI for some reason try to talk the rent-a-cop out of hiding.

Sniper PI hears sirens and decide now is a good time to drive the van on a car chase from LS to keep them away from the rest of the team. Now I again I decide he needs a break (why not kill him at this point, I ask myself now), and he runs into a sewer and kill some LS with grenades (again i let him get out, frankly just so he don't mess it up for the others).

Meanwhile the Dwarf Mage and Samurai Decker decides to enter the unmanned powerstation, not by climbing the fence and not by levitating over the fence, but by breaking into the maglock - they set off the alarm. Now in this particular case, they are again in luck because setting off the alarm 'only' mean a single LS car will arrive and check if its simple vandals or whatsnot. luckily they don't have the trigger happy Sniper PI with them so they keep hidden while LS check out the powerstation and call for a geatronics repair team.

They sneak inside and upload the software, forgetting to edit the cameraes, I decide (once again) to give them a break and because they where invisible to rule no one notice they went inside.

Next they are off to a bungalow on Council Island to upload some similar software to a personal computer - they are offered to do it because another team screwed up (sick irony here). Again they will get a big bonus if they are undiscovered.

They sneak into the resort and again set off the alarm, when trying to break into the bungalow. They are aware that there is a force 3 ward in place, but somehow don't think that the Shaman on guard will go astral and check out the alarm, so they standing around invisible when the guards show up.
The Shaman guard (with help from spirits), destroy the Dwarf Mage's sustaining focus with invisibility and the Dwarf Mage decides to drop invisibility on his mates to cast armor on himself, while the security guards try to shoot him with tasers.

Much chaos and they end up killing the resort guards and run off, having more or less completed the mission.

Now the aftermath is that the power to the city crashes and there is a total blackout. They are aware that they are the ones responsible and the first thing that pops into their head is to rob an electronics shop.
Then the Sniper PI decides to contact his reporter contact and spill everything about the run and their Mr. Johnson to the News.

This will of course results in one 'suicided' reporter and I guess I have to kill em off, next time.

I think its not as much a botched run as botched GMing on my part, I think now that I should have killed em all off in the beginning. And then they could play new Runners that should salvage the mission the other runners botched.

[tisoz]

[k1tsune]

'ey J, got the logs? I'll tell it, I guess, but I want to make sure I get every perfect little detail. *grins*

[Kagetenshi]

Got it here somewhere. I'll send when I can find.

The hyping is more placeholding than anything else. I'm massively busy, but I don't want to forget about it.

~J

[Kagetenshi]

Log sent. I may have to post it on the SotSW site sometime.

~J

[CirclMastr]

[Shockwave_IIc]

Sorry it's become one of those things that people are expecting now, and besides as mentioned the guilty party can't vote.

[RedmondLarry]

Please don't post it. It would be unkind.

[Tanka]

Oh, do tell, do tell... We all want to hear.

Well, on to a semi-botched run... Let me recall the details...

Players:
Face: Hot female human, Cha 6, Tailored Pheremones, the works.
Sniper: 'Nuff said.
Dwarf Rigger: Duh.
Little Mage: Recently graduated from MIT&T. Has little-to-no common sense.
Meat #1: Troll with about .01 Essence.
Meat #2: Another Troll with about .01 Essence.

We're hired by Corp A to hit an SK facility and steal a nuke from them. Building has four guards and two sentry guns around the perimeter, which is also a very high electrical fence. Building contains no less than a few more guards, a shaman, and... The kicker... A free toxic spirit. Ouch, huh?

So, Little Mage sits down the day before and summons up an Air Elemental. Brings it with him, and the Sniper sits back and lines up the guards. Ping, ping, ping. One left, Sniper can't get a shot. The one notices Little Mage as he, Dwarf Rigger, and Meat #1 and #2 are Stealthing up. Note: Meat #1 specifically said not to try to sneak unless you are really good at Stealth. Little Mage doesn't listen. (Precursor: We've been through two mages previously, both of them have "lost their heads," so to speak, so #1 guesses that the third will be killed, and the wound will originate from the rear) Guard fires grenade, nails Little Mage square on the rear, thusly fulfilling Meat #1's guess. Air Elemental goes free, decides to have fun and asks Face if she wants help. Face says yes, Air Elemental merges. Face is now überFace with upped stats and everything. Face goes, beats up remaining guard, enters building.

Free Toxic enters Shaman, enter fun here. Long battle, Meat #1 uses a "God Chip" and manages to throw a knife and hit the Toxic Spirit Shaman. Gives überFace opportunity to kill/banish Toxic.

Now we grab the nuke, Rigger plugs in to plane that's so well-placed, and we take off. Next we know, mist is coming in through a few cracks. Mist forms, one banshee. Still some mist. We tell the Banshee to frag off after she tells us to land and give the nuke back. Three other vampires form. Ensue battle, dusting of one Banshee and one Vampire, and the two Meats being turned into Dzoo Noo Qua (Oooh, snack!). Insane Dzoo Noo Qua escape and grease four guards, then find a place to comfortably excrete all the cyberware and bioware they had in them.

Eventually, we make it back to the J, get some congratulations, a meal (Meats' being specially edited), and another job.

Meat #1 gets bonus karma for predicting the roll.
Little Mage fragged.
Sniper leaves.
Face keeps Air Elemental in exchange for two karma from each of us.
Dwarf Rigger keeps plane.
Meat #1 & #2 are now Vampiric Trolls. Both have permits for Heavy Security Armor that has been tinted and sealed to protect from chemicals, and now also sunlight.

Meat #2 is me. :D

The campaign has yet to finish.

Sorry for the broken English, just trying to get the major points down as quickly as possible.

[CirclMastr]

[Kagetenshi]

You do realize that if I don't post it you'll probably be far more memorable in relation to it than if I do, right?

~J

[FlakJacket]

No! We demand all the - really embarrassing - details! :D

[Dun Fe'Ran]

[sidekick]

the run down.

Brick: cybered human goon who could give a Troll a run for their money for being tough and strong. (my char)
Buck Shot: A Ork with a cyber shotgun and a lot of bioware
The Man of Mystery: amnesia character, new character.
The Elf: A non cybered, non magical elf who had a flame thrower.

Our group was in need of a little capital for a big run we were under taking. We were really strapped since last run was a bust, we got captured by KE, destroyed their facility killing many and ending up with a big bounty on our heads. So we contacted our fixer for a kitty cat run.

In Snomish(sp) a farmer was complaining that something was killing his live stock. We drive out to investigate in my Americar. We chat with the farmer, who happens to live in little trailer. He mentions that his neighbors had been missing and so had some live stock. We go to check out the neighbors, and sure enough, no sign. We then decide to set up an ambush for the critter using a cow. Something comes towards the cow and we give chase. But it manages to elude us in the woods, especially after some group members fled in terror (the Fear critter power)

It's night time, but luckily most of us have low light or thermo. While we watching the bait we here gun shots. We rush back to the Farmer's place to see that door ripped off the hinges. We take a look inside and find the remains of the farmer. We decide to loot the house and get outta here. While we are lotting we hear a sound outside. We spring into action quickly and fire multiple shots in the direction the sound... thoroughly venhilating the teen age kid who was knifing our tires as a prank.

We hop into the car, decide to try to drive back toe Seattle with the flats. But pretty soon we go off the road. As we are walking, the creature jumps from the bushes and attacks us (turns out we were fighting a Wendigo). My character's first action is to punch it. Turns out the brass knuckles I had found on the run previous were the magical Brass Knuckles of Love. Now smitten with my character Brick, the Wendigo casts Influence to make the feeling mutual.

So, my character leaps into action to save his "beloved". The Elf dodges my punch (throwing in all his combat pool since out of game he knew the brass knuckles's effect) and then shot me with a taser. He rolled great and I rolled miserably for soak and took a Deadly Stun. But my Pain Editor kept me on my feet. So he hit me again. What my GM failed to tell me was that I had physical damage from the previous run (I guess he assumed I never turned off my pain editors over the course of multiple days :S) Another Deadly Wound puts my character out for the count. And No one decides to spare a trauma patch on him. They manage to take out the Wendigo with the flame thrower and steal a car to drive back to Seattle.

On the drive back, Buckshot pisses off the Man of Mystery. The Man of Mystery's response? He takes the group to his safe house, goes out for a smoke, then calls Lone Star for his reward on the bounty. The Star shows up, and the remaining members decide that they can escape into the sewers by shooting through the floor. Too bad they shot a gas main and died in the resulting explosion. As for the Man of Mystery, turns out his amnesia involved him being on the run from the Star as a wanted mass murderer, so when he went to claim his reward he was whisked away never to be seen again.

The only core group member who survived was the Hobgoblin Sammie, whose player declined to go on the run so that he could read through Cannon Companion instead.

Then there was the Boat Run, be we won't talk about that (less a botched run and more a botched GMing).