The runner comunity, how close nite is it?, Would a group of runners take a job against another? Options

[Lok1 :)]

Its my second session and so far I have a pretty solid adventure writen out, the PCs are hired by a Renruku Johnson who is actualy being hired by horizion to cover up a story about some a pharmacceuticals test project that wen't horriable wrong. The PCs compleatly the job and go to the meet with johnson to confirm the job and get their payoff, (Wich is partialy in the form of a rank4 fake passkey) at wich point Horizion sends a team to kill the johnson and anyone with him, insureing anyone with contact with the story is eleminated.
My quistion is would Horizion have to send one of their own teams, or would a team of runners knowling take a job that would pit them against other runners?
This probibly isn't an issue, just checking.
PS: I know Knit is spelled incorrectly in the title.

[Malachi]

It would depend on the runner team that is hired and how much morality they have. Horizon could also lie to them about the nature of the job. However, I would say it is definitely not out of the realm of possibility for runners to take a job killing other runners. Some people will do anything for money.

[Synner667]

1) Why would the clean up squad know who they were removing ?? If things are arranged and done quickly, there'd probably be little time for any contacting to see if sanitisers know the targets.

2) Few Corps would rashly kill anyone who's worked for them, since that leaves any deadman's switch to send information to someone. And anyone who works for strangers should always be noting who they work for [as far as their information goes, obviously].

[Lok1 :)]

The johnson dosn't normally work for Horizion, he works for a Renruku owned media company. He deals in information suppresion, in an attempt to make sure that his company reports the story first, however he screwed up a job and his career is in a death spiral. Horizion hired the guy to cover the story up, no one knows that he isn't acting for renruku, after the job he only serves as a liability.
Oh, I didn't read all of your post, any suggestions as to how Horizion would handle him? Memory alteration?

[EvilP]

I don't think there is a straight answer to this. The concepts that runner are loyal to might vary.

Horizon's best bet would probably be to just hire a team from another city that won't have any connections to the team that they want dead. If someone is willing to kill for money then it doesn't really matter what the targets do for a living.

[Lok1 :)]

So hears what I'm seeing the orders for the team sent after the PC's:
Kidnap the target (Johnson) and kill everyone he's with.
Also what am I looking at for the opposition, four 400BP runners? Or treat the wholl team as one prime runner and divide the BP amongst them?

[ApocalypseZero]

Sounds more like a use for Alter Memory really. But that comes with it's own bag of worms too.

Besides, while subversely, a Runner Team could cause harm to a Corp, in a situation as you have proposed, Horizon would be better off to refute any claims as nonsense or biased opinions from an unreliable source. I would think only IF a team started opening their mouths, would then someone be hired to shut it.

[Megu]

Well, in Emergence, the rigger Clockwork tries to extract a technomancer who's another runner on Jackpoint, Netcat, for NeoNET to experiment on. A lot of the other runners made a huge fuss when they found out, but FastJack refused to kick him off the network, and Clockwork made at least a defensible case that "runner solidarity" is a silly idea. So there are clearly runners who will do these things, but there's also runners who'd object. The desperation and the callousness of the particular team hired are probably major factors.

[Lok1 :)]

The issue isn't the story, no one would beleive them anyway. The group is hired to destroy the proof, Horizion's worryed they'll sell that information to someone. (Its worth a fucking ton) Also horizion dosn't know who he hired, only the meeting place so if the players sold the information to someone else horizion would be hard pressed to find them. Wich is why their so admit on killing them when they get the chance.
The target not only had the details but lots of trid, witness, and phyiscal proof. Its this the players are supressing.

[Creel]

It's kind of a fine line you're running. If Horizon knows where they're going to be and when, you're handing all the cards to them. It's tought to keep it believable and give your runners a ghost of a chance.

Horizon doesn't even need to hire a whole team. They get one wetwork specialist either from their own staff, or contracted to put something that goes boom at the meet location beforehand and it's pretty much over. If it's something they're willing to whack an asset of a rival corp over than the smartest way to do this is make it messy and blame it on [political terrorist of choice]. Why hire a whole team for a highly visible shootout when you can nuke'em from orbit?...as it were.

Edit: basically, sure you can always find an unscrupulous bastard that'll do what you want done...but is it the way a AAA corp would operate? If this paydata is that big a threat to them they aren't going to take chances. And no newb runner team is going to survive the direct attention of a major Megacorp. there's just no contest.

[kzt]

I'd go with a "terrorist car bomb". Turn the whole building into a crater. For this I'd want a team loyal to the Corp, as this is the kind of thing that can blow back on them if it leaked.

If you want to do something less likely to be successful than 150P of blast damage I wouldn't worry about points when designing the other team.

I'd first figure out the ground rules that are operating under. What can they do or not do? Who are they allowed to kill to get this done? Will they have outside support? Do they need to retrieve anything? Can they be loud and obvious or does it need to be less noticeable?

Then build a team that can get this done and makes sense to be hanging around together.

[Lok1 :)]

How then do I make it so that the players stand a chance to survive? Also the meet is going down in Fat Tony's, a medium tier bar with heavy anti-survialnce securty. (Its featured in some fiction)
Also if Horizion WAS worryed about a deadmans switch from johnson, then bombing the place would be bad, I'm thinking they try and hack the runners vechial (to disable its motion sensors and securty) and the place a bomb under it. That way the hacking gives the runners a chance to figure somethings wrong, also placeing a few of the hitmen in the bar ready to for backup if things go wrong works as an advantage to the PCs in that they might notice something wrong. (One of them has combat sense)

[Creel]

Doesn't do you much good at the moment, but in the future think about a target with less resources than your average God. Horizon is the largest media outlet in the world, if they want something to stay out of the news...it does.

I'd shift the players...again...

instead of Horizon hiring someone to come after then, make it a specific executive. The data they have isn't damaging to Horizon as a whole, but would make sure this guy fell down a very deep well. Now we have to figure out who he is. He's a mid-level management type, probably makes 100-250K a year. does he have a family? If so he's got less cash to toss around without the missus noticing that her check bounces when she tries to buy a new shiny, so he has to operate on a limited budget. Maybe he has some corporate discretionary funds that he can embezzle some slush-fundage through to get the job done. Now you're looking at a budget of around 100K to make sure this goes down without ANYONE (no rival corps, no news media, especially not the parent corpt) knowing anything's amiss. he's already spent some of it on the first half of the run, how much does he have left to keep it quiet? take that number and see what you can get for it.

Now your bad guy has limits, and as we learned in Harlequin's Back...if it has stats, your players will find a way to take it down.

[Lok1 :)]

Actualy that works pretty good, the news itself would hurt horizion a lot, and they would go to any extream to cover it up. That is if they knew about the leak, the executive is covering his arse by trying to contain the leak by himself, if horizion ever found out he let a the information leak he'll be out in the cold faster then a 12 year old lower class kid that just goblonized. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/extinguish.gif)
Thanks for all your help. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[PBI]

Pros would take almost any job, even if it pitted them against friends. Biz is biz, chummer...

[Creel]

Glad to help...

Keep in mind that this also gives them a tailor-made way to hijack your campaign for a few sessions. if they can track the new players to the source they'll want to make sure that Horizon knows exactly what he's trying to cover up, and how. Or they can just blackmail him, kidnap his children, make him add a small budget Item that guarantees them a monthly paycheck for as long as he lives. When you create antagonists that might have trouble taking down your team, you're also making a prime target and a method for them to get more than you intend to give them.

[ApocalypseZero]

Glad to help...

Keep in mind that this also gives them a tailor-made way to hijack your campaign for a few sessions. if they can track the new players to the source they'll want to make sure that Horizon knows exactly what he's trying to cover up, and how. Or they can just blackmail him, kidnap his children, make him add a small budget Item that guarantees them a monthly paycheck for as long as he lives. When you create antagonists that might have trouble taking down your team, you're also making a prime target and a method for them to get more than you intend to give them.

But isn't this the type of set up that creates the oh-so-lovable 'Reoccuring Villain'? It might actually be worth it 'game-wise' to work this out. Also, if you want to keep the players from having a new cash intake, the Villain here could pull some plea work and save his skin, give the players a little money (he's not at the top, can't get that much out of him), and then he tries to turn the tables and get rid of the Players in other underhanded ways. There's a lot of different angles this one could end up taking. Even the players have a serious decision to make about whether to kill this guy (and maybe catch some heat for it) or let him live for the cash (and possibly get burnt for it). There's alot of room for Risk vs. Reward. This is a really cool idea that has already got me to generate about 5 different scenarios just posting this. Then again, I am new to Shadowrun (but not to GMing), so this is what I needed. Thanks.

[Creel]

Absolutely, there's a ton of ways this can go. This is why, I firmly believe that, Shadowrun is the greatest RPG ever. There's always room to get screwed in a brand new way...just like last time.

[Lok1 :)]

How it all pans out will truly be intresting, you have to rember without copying the proof before destroying it the players have no way to blackmail this guy. I mean who's guna beleive a bunch of nobuddys, all it would do is bring alot of unwanted attention. If they do however find a way to blackmail this guy regradless it will boil down into some very intresting shinangins, I'll be sure to tell you guys how it all bails out.

[Creel]

Optical recording devices are free with new eyes these days. it's amazing what you can reconstruct when you have a week or two of dowtime and a complete visual record. I've always thought of SR as something of a competition between the GM and players (I've done it from both sides). GM gonna try to kill/maim/bankrupt the players. players try not to let him. There's a ton of room for random fun and cake runs and making money but, ultimately, I feel that SRs greatest strength is that you can't walk through it without using your brain. If you don't think about the angles, it is the GMs job to punish stupidity.

Think or Die.

[Lok1 :)]

As for recording that requirs they actualy look at the data, they don't know what specific data their looking for, their just deleting the wholl arcives of the target company.

[Creel]

As for recording that requirs they actualy look at the data, they don't know what specific data their looking for, their just deleting the wholl arcives of the target company.

Any decent size company in the here and now has backups that they keep offsite in a cold storage facility, or hosted by a dedicated backup company. Did your people take that out too? Probably not, so odds are the data still exists somewhere. Wiping the primary systems is quite the wrench in their sprockets, but it doesn't mean they're out of the game. The runners could hook up with the former target company and negotiate a fee for helping find the dude that ordered the job. "He paid us to screw you, so we did...no hard feelings, chummer it's the job. Then he tried to screw us, now it seems we have a common enemy..."

[Lok1 :)]

Actualy I factord that into the run, at least half of it (probibly one session) is dedicated the backups.

[Traul]

There is no such thing as the runner community: would you befriend somebody who can get caught any day and snitch on you to save his own ass? But on the other hand, there has to be respect: today you're fighting each other, tomorrow you might get hired together. Nothing personal.

There is a nice talk about the mercenary honor code in Fields of Fire.

[Nightfalke]

There is no such thing as the runner community: would you befriend somebody who can get caught any day and snitch on you to save his own ass? But on the other hand, there has to be repect: today you're fighting each other, tomorrow you might get hired together. Nothing personal.

That's a good point; respect vs. community. I may respect the hell out of a high rep runner, but if I'm hired to take him down...He's going down.

Problem is...when people do take it personally. That's a great hook for runs and campaigns.