You'll Never Take Me Alive!, what happens when runners get caught? Options

[Loch]

The whole physical/stun cheeseball thread reminded me of this. What can runners who get caught on a job expect to have happen to them? Obviously it's going to vary a lot from corp to corp, but how does treatment and sentencing of criminals differ from sixth world governments to a AAA megacorp, how does that change if it's only a AA corp or a "lowly" A corp? If you are captured by authorities, is it better that you have a legitimate SIN (or at least a very good fake), or be SINless? what about Criminal SINners who get caught a second or third time? How much of a dick move is it to take away gear and/or augmentations that the player spent lots of BP/Karma on if they used those items to commit a crime?

[CanRay]

Jurisdiction to Jurisdiction. AAA/AA-Corps are extraterritorial. They have their own laws, and you better believe that they punish "Terrorists" like Shadowrunners HARD. Cranial Bombs and a Suicide Mission is probably the best you can hope for.

A-Level Corporations are still governed by the country they live in. So, in the UCAS/CAS, if you are a real SINner (Even with a criminal record), or have a very good fake, you have all the rights given to citizens (Right to remain silent, right to counsel, etc.). If you're SINless or previously SINless and only have a Criminal SIN, well, Officer Troll starts beating you your rights and convinces you to sign the nice papers that ensures you go to prison (Again), and looks good on the quarterly report for successful arrests and confessions.

[sunnyside]

First off all in this edition I always provide the option to burn edge and get away somehow.


But getting captured is an all too standard plot device in the novels, and that tends to work out.

Think of it this way, when your runners grab a gun while on a job do they melt it down when they get back to their safehouse? No, they use it or sell it.


The reason runners can exist as they do is that they're tools. Generaly no more likely to act against one corp than to act for it. So after a job is over and their employer has launched their prototype or whatever, there isn't any margine in the corp that got hit going after the runners. It's just be wasted resources as their enemy corp could just hire someone else next time.

In this sense a corp (or even LS) capturing some runners might think more about what they could do for them than about wastefully killing them.

However I have this very. Are they known prolific cop killers? If so than I make them burn the edge if they would get captured by the police as they would have an "accident" on the way to the precinct house or generally things would end well.

Now, if only one member of the team is captured, that's something else entirely as it opens up rescue attempt type run possibilities. The stuff above is for total party stunballs etc.

[Yerameyahu]

Ditto: captured runners get sent on new missions (interrogated first). It's just the requirement of being a game. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Think Burn Notice. If they get imprisoned, then they have to break out.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Well... Example time I guess.
Personal Experience for my CyberLogicain Character.

SINner for Knight Errant. Undercover in the shadows, compiling Dosiers on the local Runners/Criminal Organizations in Hong Kong.

At one point, I was pursued and captured by Yakuza (I gave up when I realized that 3 against one was a potentially lost cause, thoguh I did manage to take one of them down before taking the 6 boxes of STUN that I took prior to my capture) working for Mitsuhama (We had raided the Mitsuhama Towers more than a handful of times over the year, and they were very tired of this). So, they dispatched a team to capture myself and the Triad Mover/Shaker on our team. He was worth turning (and became a great stooge, who was never actually caught out), and using for their own purposes. I, on the other hand, was a liability, not only to Mitsuhama, but to my parent Corporation as well. So, after having been disavowed by my Bosses in KE, I had the majority (though not all, as some was required to maintain mobility and functionality of my biosystem) of my cybernetic systems (Almost 4 Essence worth of Beta Grade Cyber, mostly headware), removed, and was then slotted for transport to an orbital Prison.

Before I was shipped to the Orbital facility, I was able to cluster my remaining Cyber (Had enough of it in place to make a functional, if very basic, comlink, and had set up the statistics of it at the beginning of the campaign, 3 years earlier, on the off chance it might matter) and traded Criminal SIN's with another prisoner who was staying planet bound, slated to be sent to a Gobi Desert prison. All that my contacts managed to find was that I had been transferred to the Orbital. So, with no hope of being released by my team members, I proceeded to set up a prison break. Eventually, I managed to make a contact or two outside the prison walls that led me to a Wuxing Manager who needed some expertise that I had. He helped get me released, paid for some basic facial/body reconstruction to change my Identity, and put some very basic 'Ware back into my body. Really Sucked, let me tell you.

I then managed to get recruited by my original team, and ran with them agaiin for the next year or so as a new runner. Eventually, I managed to finagel ssome finances to start re-acquiring my Cyber... I managed to even make a few high-level contacts that made a Delta Clinic Available for me, for a price, of course. Eventually, all my Cyber was replaced (well, most of it anyways), and I even managed to acquire a few things that I had lacked previously. In the end, I accidentally outed myself during the conclusion of the Emergence Campaign. Managed to even keep the other characters from killing me, as they had found out about my previous employer, and my mission in the shadows. It was a blast.

.........

Had I just fought to the end, I would have died upon my capture, and that would have been very boring indeed. The fact that I lost more than a Million Nuyen in Cyberware sucked, as did losing about 80 drones/vehicles or so, and all the equipment/remaining unspent funds that I had acquired over the course of 3 years of play. But it sure was fun. And no, not once did I ever consider removing my armor so that I could have room for additional boxes of damage, so that I might actually escape from the Yakuza thugs sent to capture me. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Warlordtheft]

Depends, usually a quick bullet to the face if they have killed anyone on the side that captured them. Otherwise cotex bombs or carcerands with a timed releas poison to get them to do 1 suicide run.

[CanRay]

Depends, usually a quick bullet to the face if they have killed anyone on the side that captured them. Otherwise cotex bombs or carcerands with a timed releas poison to get them to do 1 suicide run.

"We need you to get the President out of New York." "The president of what?"

[Dr.Rockso]

"We need you to get the President out of New York." "The president of what?"

"Call me Snake"

[3278]

In a harsh dystopia, it would probably be interrogation, experimentation, death. That's not that fun, so usually capture is just the beginning of the adventure: you can start a prison campaign, or be broken out of corporate holding by an unexpected savior who needs something in return that only you can provide, or offered amnesty in exchange for service, or strangely set free for no reason that's immediately apparent.

[Glyph]

It's really a GM call. Most corporations who have someone who doesn't officially exist tied up in their basement won't even think to call the cops. Either the PCs can cut a deal, since most people can think of something to do with professional assets who works under the table, or they get killed because they are too dangerous/untrustworthy. I would tend to shy away from all of the character-maiming stuff, or at least give the player the option to start a new character. Otherwise, the player can either become a lot more disinterested in the game, or become focused on revenge to the exclusion of whatever else the GM wants to focus on.

I can see the "fight to the death" attitude, depending on the game. In some games, getting captured is just another plot twist, and not necessarily one that will end with the character being maimed. In other games, your character will either get killed, or be worse than dead, so might as well go out in a blaze of glory (or a spectacular critical fumble).

[Midas]

Yeah, if you're caught red-handed by CorpSec on a run, it won't be pretty. I would imagine interrogation (including Mind Probe) to try and find out who the Johnson is, or if the runners don't know info on their fixer. A nice loyalty-fixing cranial bomb and a Covert Ops job might await the more professional runners.

If you're caught by KE, you can expect to be taken to the local precinct for processing/interview and then transfer to prison to await trial. How you are treated by the police depends very much on what charge they have you on: if the run involved lots of boom (terrorists!), the slaughter of a number of SINners or the death of a cop, things won't be pretty. If you were just caught in possession of an assault rifle, you might even get off with a few weeks in the cells and a fine (and of course, confiscation of said assault rifle).

As a GM, if my PCs were captured I would weigh up the evidence of who caught them doing what, tell them what they could reasonably expect, and ask them if they wanted to keep playing or roll new characters. If some PCs escaped, they could mount a daring rescue operation to spring their comrade. If for whatever reason I wanted to keep the PCs alive and free, perhaps the Johnson could move to spring them, fearful of they might be able to tell their captors. As TJ posted, being captured could be the beginning of something really big for a PC rather than the end, if the player(s) and the GM have the inclination and the imagination.

[Murphy01]

This very scenario is being debated on the MUD I GM on. I did a playerrun with three folks who got taken out by a bodyguards with a Narcoject whilst breaking and entering into a corp's house. KE picked them up. Now, given that it's a Mud environment, I'm voting to strip them of their illegal gear, tag them with the prison record and turn them loose. The MUD is at seattle2064.net port 4000. I'll update when I get a decision from the Imms.

[Whitefur]

Got busted not long ago by a AAA corp. Had to make a new character and say ten sessions later that same guy came looking for the group leading some other mercs from said corps reformed prisoner program. He was a hard line streetsam of magnitude.
It kind of sucked (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif)

[Daddy's Litt...]

Our game had to 'retire' a character after he was given 6 years inside for arson.most of us were too far away to help. He tossed the unconscious shaman in a dumpster and then didn't resist so the police focused on him, and the bug infest health club they had burned down.

[Daylen]

If its properly dystopic there should be plenty of opportunity for the runners to escape. If its more of a clean and gilded setting the players will likely be caught up in some plot by the GM. If the GM is a dick then there will be prison sessions for at least one player or someone is making a new character.

[Paul]

Prison doesn't have to mean the end of the game-but I guess it's all in what you see as fun at your table. As long as whatever you do is internally consistent with the game world as you run it, I say go for it. I'd definitely make sure everyone is enjoying exploring these themes before revisiting them too often. All in all, I say a Marvel Universe/DC Comics approach to it all-find the fun option, the cool option and try to make it as real as you need it to be.

We're not dictating historical facts but obviously everyone needs a different kind of fantasy to act out at their table.

[Daylen]

Playing prison with no cyber, magic or decent weapons hardly sounds exciting. Of course there is always the Escape from New York option where players can have cyberware, magic and decent weapons.

[Paul]

Prison's don't have to be limited to the common sense option-the deactivation of offensive, and troubling cybernetics; magics; etc....Other options are out there-Escape from New York inspired scenarios; and other media inspired possibilities exist and can be made internally consistent. That said it's sad that people feel so wrapped up in their numbers that a game, or even a few games with out their high speed trinkets is so daunting. I'm not saying drop the PC's into the fire every time they jump out of the frying pan, but adversity every once in a while keeps you lean and hungry.

[CanRay]

Or the Hacker can just see to it that the guy is released on good behavior.

"He was here a week." "Musta been really good." "I found da LAWRD!" "See."

[Dr.Rockso]

I'm surprised Shadowrun never went in the direction of Escape from New York prisons. It'd be an interesting direction. Corp sponsored, with an obligatory trid show made out of it.

[CanRay]

I'm surprised Shadowrun never went in the direction of Escape from New York prisons. It'd be an interesting direction. Corp sponsored, with an obligatory trid show made out of it.

There's been ideas out of my local insane buddy.

[stevebugge]

The short answer is Plot happens. Shadowrunners are useful and you don't have to pay captive ones...

[Daylen]

Prison's don't have to be limited to the common sense option-the deactivation of offensive, and troubling cybernetics; magics; etc....Other options are out there-Escape from New York inspired scenarios; and other media inspired possibilities exist and can be made internally consistent. That said it's sad that people feel so wrapped up in their numbers that a game, or even a few games with out their high speed trinkets is so daunting. I'm not saying drop the PC's into the fire every time they jump out of the frying pan, but adversity every once in a while keeps you lean and hungry.

What is the point of playing a game with the plethora of combat options available, yet be happy with a long game restricted to Super Knockout with even heavier GM controls on activities? Plus how could it be fun to be a mage in prison with ones hands bound and vision blocked to keep the character from casting? Or a street sam who gets to spend his time with no arms, and internal cyberware broken or removed as it was all illegal?

[CanRay]

The short answer is Plot happens. Shadowrunners are useful and you don't have to pay captive ones...

Lots of ways to ensure that 'Runners do what you want them to.

Or else.

Not all of them involve cranial bombs. But the fun ones do! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[3278]

What is the point of playing a game with the plethora of combat options available, yet be happy with a long game restricted to Super Knockout with even heavier GM controls on activities? Plus how could it be fun to be a mage in prison with ones hands bound and vision blocked to keep the character from casting? Or a street sam who gets to spend his time with no arms, and internal cyberware broken or removed as it was all illegal?

It's like a song. I can hold a note for a long time - I can hold a note forever - but eventually, that's just noise. It's the change you're listening for, the note coming after and the one after that. That's what makes it music.