NPC threats, Begging for help Options

[Dumori]

I agreed with KTZ, roll are to determine how well you perform an action not if this action is appropriate, if you go into a corp secret research facility dressed in glowing arange and carrying a stereo that puts out music at 10'000 db you are not going to find a rave party there no matter how well you rolled.

Maybe an edge test requiring ten hits (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[toturi]

hi hi

What do you do when a player comes up with a horrible plan and rolls really well for it? Does that plan suddenly become a good idea and you have to change the scenario so that it wont get them all horribly maimed? That actually sounds like a fun thought experiment for a GM, but I can also see it going wildly out of control.

You can either point out that the plan is horribly flawed, (how it is flawed and how to rectify it) or run with the horrible plan and change the scenario. Changing the scenario may be more work, but sometimes, just sometimes, just because conventional wisdom(you) says it is a bad idea, doesn't mean that it actually is. In chess, it would probably be a ???! move, a highly dubious move that turns out brilliant. Trying to fire to the enemy fleet was probably a suicidal idea at Red Cliff by conventional wisdom but it worked brilliantly because the wind changed directions. If the GM did not want to change his plans by having the wind change directions on him, that's fine.

[Jekolmy]

So my question to this is where does a team like Ares Firewatch or the MCT Zero Zone Teams come in. (At least I think MCT has Zero Zone teams that respond to attacks on their Zero Zone facilities, whatever that means.) I guess I don't know where they come in not having read much of the fluff before 4th edition.

[kzt]

MCT has the security on-site. By deciding that it is a zero zone they are essentially sticking the security force's (and to a lesser extent MCT's) credibility on the line. Failure would be seen as dishonorable. Plus it's a site that is considered critical to the operation of the company. It's not protected by a couple of mall guards who call 911. MCT doesn't want to kill you if you break into the Zero zone, they want you dead well before you reach it.

Firewatch, well, varies depending on who is writing the fluff. They range from formidable at the low end to to being who prime runners want to be like when they grow up.

[Jekolmy]

So could a Zero Zone be only a portion of a compound? Like say the MCT Compound has living quarters, and something they find critical like say a factory or bio-research lab (think CCD sort of thing).

Also is the fact that the facility is a Zero Zone advertised, or is it kept relatively quiet so as to not provide an unnecessary risk for the corporation. I can only assume that there are those corporations that would hire runners with at least a secondary purpose to break the fabled security of the Zero Zone.

I'm working on a run where the players will be going into a MCT Zero Zone so thats mostly why I'm asking, but the fluff is certainly fun too. So I can probably assume its fairly safe to pull out most of the stops here, but not so much its impossible, merely very difficult.

[masterofm]

A Zero zone is a facility. Maybe just maybe it might be a facility underneath a facility (kind of like the fake paper company in heroes,) but expect that a good 90% of the people working for the front company will be very very good at taking you down. Generally it would be located in a place where approaching undetected is almost impossible, with large scale defenses both physical and magical. These are places where people don't want you to enter, and if anything out of the ordinary occurs expect swift and sudden death. There will be high powered mages, cyber monsters, tripped out vehicles, up to date drone support, and a security hacker team with massive agents that it would probably give you quite a headache.

Think military underground heavily monitored Fortress. I would say Zero Zones are not advertised and are heavily hidden from prying eyes. I was also under the impression that it doesn't have a lot of traffic enter the area. Probably people who enter one of those facilities enter it and expect to be there for 10-20 years. It's a job for life... literally because having commuters to a Zero Zone means that there is a larger chance people can slip in and cause havoc.

[Jekolmy]

I think my players just got hustled by their Johnson today. Well that's what they get for not asking for any details before (or after) setting a price. I may have to go back and re-work their meeting now though... seems just a touch unfair otherwise.

[masterofm]

If your Johnson sent the players to go to a Zero Zone facility without some kind of in the Johnson probably wants them dead. Maybe the Johnson is hiring the team to create a distraction and die a terrible death so he can get another more experienced team to infiltrate the facility.

The only time our players came close to a Zero Zone facility is when it was already abandoned and everyone was pretty much killed by a crazy powerful cyberzombie and three extremely powerful mages held off an assault from their own corporation trying to shut down the facility (they altered the memory of the assault team so that they thought the job was finished and the facility was destroyed.) The mages left after that, and eventually the cyberzombie went insane and killed everyone else in the facility. That was the only way we were able to enter it... except that cyber zombie almost killed our team twice.

I think your runners after doing any kind of recon on a Zero Zone facility would know that unless the Johnson has an in it would be the kind of job you walk away from. Although for an interesting twist I might suggest that the team finds this all out and maybe sets up the Johnson and the other team to take a fall.

[kzt]

So could a Zero Zone be only a portion of a compound? Like say the MCT Compound has living quarters, and something they find critical like say a factory or bio-research lab (think CCD sort of thing).

Yes. Like the national military command center is just a portion of the Joint Chief of Staffs portion of the Pentagon. It doesn't mean that it's easy to get into the JCS section, or into the Pentagon at all.

[Jekolmy]

If your Johnson sent the players to go to a Zero Zone facility without some kind of in the Johnson probably wants them dead. Maybe the Johnson is hiring the team to create a distraction and die a terrible death so he can get another more experienced team to infiltrate the facility.

I think your runners after doing any kind of recon on a Zero Zone facility would know that unless the Johnson has an in it would be the kind of job you walk away from. Although for an interesting twist I might suggest that the team finds this all out and maybe sets up the Johnson and the other team to take a fall.

Thinking about it more the Johnson is planning on doublecrossing the players when it comes time for payment, so having him set them up on the facility itself isn't going to be an issue with him either, just less of a problem when its time to kill them.

I sincerely hope that my players decide to do some in depth legwork on this one (they know that this run is one for the big leagues so the should) and its going to be pretty obvious to them when they do that research that they guy works for someone he's not claiming to be (I'm personally thinking Azetechnology right now) and he has his own team ready to go in. And to throw it all in a blender I had planned on a different team altogether (campaign plot related) hitting the facility at the same time, especially if they realize that other people are doing research on that target.

The next question is though would MCT call in reinforcements on a facility it deems a Z-Zone while its being infiltrated/attacked?

[masterofm]

If a Z-Zone facility was being attacked expect that the facility has a small army protecting it. If a facility like that was attacked and a team was doing well against the extreme amounts of opposition (I don't know how they would though) expect extreme amounts of magical support within minutes (astral speed is very fast.) If push comes to shove Ares would probably receive a lot of money to make the Z-Zone a crater. Sometimes secrets are worth keeping more then the loss of a Z-Zone facility.

Think attack planes movemented with precision guidance missles, and maybe a few tanks just to make sure the team understands what they are up against. Personally if my character was told to take on a Z-Zone he would walk away from the table right then and there. I always viewed Z-Zones as suicide, like taking on dragons... which you might end up doing...