Screwing your Mr/Ms Johnson (Not in a good way) Options

[mrslamm0]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) First of all I dont know if this has been posted some where else that I just missed because I have heavy "modifiers" for being under so many cold meds but ill throw out there because im not sure what the logical approach to this would be. Any one who is in my group please do not read on!

So I ran a game that took place in Nova Scotia UCAS. The team was hired by a dwarven johnson to take out a CEO of a mega corp that owned a good chunk of the land Nova Scotia sat on ( played with some SR back story of when the time the UCAS was formed and such). Another part of there mission was to obtain both physical and digital copy's of the corps land documents and return back to the Denver free states. So my players mange to do that successfully but I threw out some other offers from opposing factions to pay them top nuyen for the information and return the fakes to the original johnson. That idea kinda backfired as every faction that is fighting for this land for there own personal reasons ended up getting a real copy and one of my players with high connections to Saeder-Krupp sposely gave a copy to the great dragon. ( If I remeber right he wanted the land north of Nova Scotia because it once belonged to the Big D?) So I guess my question is as a gm did I majorly screwed up to the point where the players shouldn't be punished by the Johnsons for being as far as im concerned double crossed. Or is this acutaly a commen thing in peoples games where the johnsons will just have to figure it out on there own?

Any links or advice would be wonderful thank you

[ornot]

It depends how widely known it is that they've sold/given the info to a bunch of other powers. If the Johnson hears about it before they go to settle their business, in the very best case he'd not pay them, and at worst would have some scary folk waiting to kill them.

If he doesn't know, then they might get paid, but their rep would take a hit afterwards for breaking their word.

[Icephisherman]

I was under the impression that Saeder-Krupp was run in a way that if you actively screw with them you'll be lucky to live to regret it.

I suggest loss of the contact at the very least as he or she has proven to be untrustworthy to that contact. If the contact has a high level of trust in that shadowrunner then bring the total value of that next to nil, but that the contact will give him or her a chance to redeem himself.

As for the Johnson I'd make sure to see if he actually got wind of what was going on. If he got wind of it the Johnson may just not pay them or put a hit out on them. If he didn't he'll figure it out eventually. So either way there will be some sort of retribution, even if it is just in credibility lost.

[JeffSz]

I like situations like this:

The johnson looks up from a hardcopy printout report (printed on actual paper, an obvious show of wealth) and removes his glasses. He recites from it.

"Mr. Jeremas Reynolds, born November twenty-third 2041 to one Doctor Alexandria Reynolds and one Harold Reynolds in Seattle. Charged with six counts of murder and theft over 5000 nY in August 2063, disappeared into the Barrens while Lone Star Seattle attempted apprehension. Wanted in the CAS for smuggling illegal weapons as Barriston Selmey.

Now residing in Denver, under the alias Elias Bleinheim and known on the streets as The Gnat; on Jackpoint as DoktrFrag. Quite an opinionated forumite.

Jeremas Reynolds is known to the First Bank of The Free State of California as Richard Lake, with an accrued balance of four-hundred sixty-two thousand, eight hundred fourty seven dollars, eighty-five cents.

No living relatives, no long-standing friends, no property owned legally under a real name."

Johnson looked up from his papers. "You were quick to give away information we payed you very, very well for. There are no hard feelings, but you will of course understand that we have to recoup our losses somehow: that's why there's a small explosive charge attatched to your spine at the base of your neck, another attatched to each of your kneecaps, and one implanted on your pelvic bone just to the left of your groin. You're going to earn the money we paid you on a new run or I'll detonate each one, in a very painful order; we can't be concerned you'll be uncooperative, can we?"

The johnson motioned for his men to release the straps that held Jeremas to the operating table. Jeremas held his hands up gingerly; each finger had been severed at each joint with bolt cutters, one by one, as "punishment" - then they'd been reattatched by Johnson's private surgeon.

Johnson sat down on a soft-looking leather sofa. "The fingers were because you pissed me off. The kink bombs are to ensure you give me my money's worth of service. As to the matter of the data you released to some of your...contacts." The johnson patted the stack of papers he'd been reading from. "Since you released ours, I've sent copies of all of YOUR information, very painstakingly gathered I assure you, to all interested parties. I've also notified them of where you'll be in 72 hours, once you've completed your next run for us. We'll release you an hour early, to give you a fair chance, of course. Good day, Jeremas."

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(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[CanRay]

Either that, or the return of Doctor What.

[Cthulhudreams]

i've always just assumed that they won't get paid, and depending on the johnson won't get any further work from him, his extended community (ie corporation) and potentially others, as no-one wants to hire shadowrunners that don't do the job.

[CanRay]

Not to mention a reputation for not doing your job. Which is deadly to the career, which causes death due to lack of funds.

"Hello, welcome to McHugh's, would you like Fries with that?"

[sunnyside]

Now wait. Did they sell origionals to everybody telling each group they were the only ones getting an origional?

If that's the case they players are in deep drek. Because all of those J's wants their money back. And the only thing worse for a J's reputation than screwing over some runners is having some runners screw him and not have some assasins coming for them

Because in the former it's just hard to find runners to work with you. In the latter the runners you do get are more likely to try something.

Now if they told everybody else that they were diseminating origionals to a lot of people and it was a matter of whether any single one wanted in or not that's not quite as bad. The origional J will be trying to ruin their rep and taken them down. But it's just one guy.

In that case they'd probably find that nobody is willing to offer them money up front. Or very little. And the jobs would be ones where it's hard to screw the employer over. Probably lower pay as well. Also none of the other Js they sold stuff to would be all that likely to hire them. This because it's a similar situation to "Why would a I want to marry a woman who cheats on her husband (even if it is with me) "

[masterofm]

Sorry but doing something that foolish would not have a Johnson go "well I just won't pay you then." He put the team on a critical run that he thought he could trust them with. If the Johnson got rammed that hard anyone with any form of money would be putting hits out on the party, or just request a meet, snag them with three shadowrunning teams and slowly suck the life out of them for months. If a Johnson didn't do this then everyone would know that he lets people just walk all over them (and would be fish bait.)

I mean if a Johnson tried to kill a team would the SR team let him go with a slap on the wrist? "Oh hey Mr. Johnson you tried to kill us and take this pay data that was worth 1,000 times what you had paid us to do the run. Well you should double our fee or we walk!" Would someone do this? Really? Then why think the Johnson would let them off w/o trying to put some serious hurt on the party. In fact I think everyone who paid top dollar would want the ass of the shadowrunners that screwed them.

Anyone ever seen the movie "Smokin' Aces?" Somewhat of a lame movie, but the premise still applies.

[mrslamm0]

Well they were paid by every one and I would have to go over my notes on my laptop at home but if I remember right they gave a copy to all the parties. I don't remember off hand who got the real ones and who didn't but I didn't even expect the great dragon to end up with a copy. Im pretty sure he ended up with a real copy of it due to wanting PEI because of the big D had it at one point or something like that. But any ways its not just a matter of breaking a Johnson agreement for a job but puts a hurt on all the factions who were gunning for this information and the assassination of this person because pretty much with every one having a copy of the information no one has the upper hand. So I was curious on what everyone thought since I will openly admit I like to screw with my players by eather offering them money for information even though it may screw with there contacts so ill come up with something but keep the ideas coming I like what you all have so far. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Herald of Verjig...]

Let me see if I understand right.

Original job was to return the data.
Multiple offers of "give us the data, and send fakes to the original."
Everyone gets the real data.

If that's the case, the original job was fully completed, so they did not breach a contract. However, their method of fulfilling the contract would add some footnotes to keep in mind for future potential employment. Any furthur jobs will not involve valuable copyable data. Also, all the factions that gave side-offers with the "lie to your employer" condition will now see that their contracts were not properly fulfilled and may just take the next steal by force.

For more fun, the runners may be able to split efforts a bit and convince all the side-factions that they are willing to fully defect on the next job, but that they will need help to properly get rid of the unwilling rest of the group. If the trick works, then you can have a multi-factioned war over the runners who will then try to sneak away from the crossfire. If it fails, then you can run a few rescue missions.

[Speed Wraith]

Either that, or the return of Doctor What.

I hated that guy...don't even remember what he was from, just that he annoyed the hell out of me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[CanRay]

I hated that guy...don't even remember what he was from, just that he annoyed the hell out of me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

The Harlequin Adventure.

I'm going to have to modify it for 4th Edition, just because it's so good!

Not to mention I get to use Doctor What against my group. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/vegm.gif)

[masterofm]

Nobody got what they wanted considering what they payed him for, you probably ended up giving a great dragon some information that he probably paid for. Everyone now has useless information that they just payed money for.... so they should probably be fine. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sleepy.gif) Make them roll up new characters with the excuse of "Yeah your just dead." I mean call me foolish, but when a great dragon wants you dead YOU ARE DEAD. Do you have a huge army at your disposal? No? Oh then kill the force 20-40 spirit he sends at you for waisting his time.... oh wait you can't.

[Speed Wraith]

Nobody got what they wanted considering what they payed him for, you probably ended up giving a great dragon some information that he probably paid for. Everyone now has useless information that they just payed money for.... so they should probably be fine. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sleepy.gif) Make them roll up new characters with the excuse of "Yeah your just dead." I mean call me foolish, but when a great dragon wants you dead YOU ARE DEAD. Do you have a huge army at your disposal? No? Oh then kill the force 20-40 spirit he sends at you for waisting his time.... oh wait you can't.

Uh, yeah, don't do that, that's no fun for anyone (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Truth is, the characters are too small for a great dragon to throw all of its resources at some insignificant runners. Make their lives a living hell for a while, until the decision is made that they're not worth the money/manpower to hunt them down and that they've learned their lesson.

[masterofm]

Well for one thing it discourages that kind of behavior. The other thing is for a dragon in the high double digits of magic putting forth a force 30 spirit might not be overkill for them.

In the end it's all how you want to run your game, and how the players want to play I guess. In our game a stunt like that would get us killed five minutes after the dragon found out we boned him. If you want to allow your runners to do this then go ahead, but know that they will expect they can get away with messing with a dragon the next time it comes up (at least allowing them to live.)

[mrslamm0]

Hmm I think I was being unclear about the dragon part of this whole thing. One of the players had a connection to Saeder-Krupp he secretly worked for them and desided to try to cash in and sell the information to them. This caught the attention of Lofwyr since part of the land involved Prince Edward Island (just off Nova Scotia)land that Dunkelzahn once owned? I figured a gm call was needed for this and well I dont like to punish the players ever for some thing the GM didnt think of or planed out. So its not necessarily Sader-Krupp that would be punishing them it would be the original johnson who hired this group to get the information and give it back. Things just went a little off when every one desided to take the side offers and give the information to all the Johnsons.

I dont know if that clears anything up im sorry if its confusing any one but I do appreciate the input (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

[Herald of Verjig...]

Unless I am really missing something, Goldsnout got a copy without asking for it, and there was no other mention of a dragon in the summaries here. This means they annoyed a bunch of human groups by not giving exclusive ownership of the data to any of them. This also means there is no evidence (yet given) that even a runtling drake wants them dead, much less a great dragon.

[edit: yeah, that one above this post. What it said.]

[Speed Wraith]

Well for one thing it discourages that kind of behavior. The other thing is for a dragon in the high double digits of magic putting forth a force 30 spirit might not be overkill for them.

All I'm saying is killing PCs by GM fiat is a bad idea... Throwing insurmountable challenges against the PCs in an effort to simply kill the group is a sure way of ticking off the players in your group and is kind of cheesy. Runners pull boneheaded moves sometimes, its all in the game, right? Let them be boneheaded, it shouldn't end the game altogether so much as hurt them in the short term (probably even hurt them a lot). Harrying them with multiple challenges for a while would discourage such behavior, as would being hung out to dry by a contact or two. Anyway, just my $.02 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[masterofm]

Everyone at our table has at least 1 backup character. If a GM wants to kill us he can (but only if he has a good reason.) It's always down to the way the GM wants to play it. Me I would probably kill the team. Its harsh, but thats the way we play it.

@ below - yes they all think they are the only ones who have it... until everyone tries to use the information and realizes how useless it is.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

That idea kinda backfired as every faction that is fighting for this land for there own personal reasons ended up getting a real copy and one of my players with high connections to Saeder-Krupp sposely gave a copy to the great dragon.

So everyone involved thinks they are the only ones in possession of the real deal - except Big L.

Where's the problem?

Your players were clever - reward them.

[mrslamm0]

So everyone involved thinks they are the only ones in possession of the real deal - except Big L.

Where's the problem?

Your players were clever - reward them.

Clever yes, I figured in game time each side figured out that they had the same copies or think so. I would have a hard time after this discovery thinking each factions Johnson is going to shurg and go oh well. I dont pull the GM auto kill card I prefer to screw with the players personally so I think ill give this more thought before doing anything I wasn't going to do. before. Next step post some news about the "war" erupting in Nova Scoita then ill go from there. Thank you all you have been a great help even with me being unclear on a few things.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

I figured in game time each side figured out that they had the same copies or think so.

Why did they figure out? It's not like they would bragg about it.

[mrslamm0]

Why did they figure out? It's not like they would bragg about it.

No but when they all show up to Stake there claim on the land and all find they have claims on the same chunk of land well I cant imagine that would end very pretty or better yet raise flags in the minds of the UCAS or even the corp court I would imagine.

[Herald of Verjig...]

I doubt a land grab would get corp court attention by itself. What information did everyone get? Replicas of the deed would only be useful for pointing out who owns the land. I can't think of any copyable document that gives ownership to the holder, as opposed to recognizing ownership by a specific individual.

Wouldn't the next step be a contest between the parties about who can get the actual deed(s) to the land first?