I just improvised my characters into taking another Run., What kind of security are the Vory likely to have on something mobile? Options

[ShadowDragon8685]

Well, I've already figured out the shape of the defenses. Most of the Vory are busy in Tacoma wasting Knight-Errant's time.

They figured that they'd never sneak something this hot past Knight Errant, so they're pulling a fast one. They let KE believe that something was coming to Tacoma, while the goods are actually making landfall via smuggler-submarine in Everett and being put on a truck there. The truck has a rigger and three passengers; a gunner in the front seat coordinating the drone overwatch who can shoot out of the front gun ports, a bojevik in the sleeper cab who can shoot out the side gun ports, and a mage from an impressed wizzer-gang in the sleeper cab. The bojevik is named in Vice, so players can get a profile on her if they just think to browse Jackpoint!* ((What they don't know - or might, if they do legwork on her - is that she has an addiction to Tempo, so I'm going to roll some dice to determine what her state is when they get to her. She might be normal, she might be cruising on Tempo. She might be in the middle of sexually assaulting the poor helpless wizard/asleep after doing the same, or, if they're very unlucky, she might have fallen asleep and be possessed by a Force 5 Shadow Spirit when the gunshots start flying. They might wind up facing an augmented killing machine, or a magical Threat benefiting from many of the augmented killing machine's passive augs.))

The mage is low-powered (Magic 3,) and mostly-crap, but his street name is 'summoner' because he's a good, well, summoner. ((He's got two bound F3 Fire spirits with Noxious Breath.)) The drone overwatch is going to take the form of a Kull drone flying between overhead and three miles out, so it doesn't just scream "Keeping tabs on this truck here!" to any casual observer, with two LEBD-1 drones concealed in pop-open canisters under its wings. If shit goes down, the Drone flies overhead, drops the drones, they pop out and start shooting everything with their RPK Heavy Machine Guns. There will also be a hot sim rigger/hacker in Moscow running Matrix overwatch, ready to interfere with hacking attempts or jump into one of the drones.

((There will also be a GMC Bulldog with six Vory soldiers in it. The two in the front have HK-Urban Combat machine pistols concealed in the leather of their seats and are wearing ballistic cloth Stuffer Shack delivery uniforms, while the four in the back are armored and carrying RPK-7.62 Battle Rifles. One of them is also a named NPC with a custom rifle and generally superior stats.))

Everything in double parenthesis is going to be information the players won't have access to, even if they do crack the data vault. The Bulldog full of soldiers is a late addition to the security, a 'just in case,' the Vory don't trust magic and as a consequence just told the mage to be at a certain place on a certain time, and obviously it won't contain info on the potential twist. They might find partial or complete information about any or all of this if they decide to go and do some legwork.


*They seem to be averse to doing legwork. This infuriates me. The only one who regularly does do Matrix searches is the amnesiac who doesn't have a Jackpoint login. (I'm reckoning that Jackpoint is more like the old Shadowlands in that many know about it, most Shadowrunners can access it (assuming you haven't pissed off FastJack by threatening a kid or something,) and read stuff, only regulars with high (or low) reputations can post comments, and if you have reading access, you may well be tapped to write an article once a year in your area of expertise to fulfill your 'contributing member' quota... Or just fork over some nuyen to help cover server costs.)

[The Jake]

Punishing lazy player's who fail to undertake basic due diligence is a time honored tradition in these parts.

- J.

[ShadowDragon8685]

For anybody who's wondering, I've got the details of the run in a big document, which I tossed up as a Google Doc.

It's probably something of a softball, but sometimes you get really, really lucky. Even so, for being a little light on the defenses, these Vory soldiers are still heavy hitters, and the Vory have access to a lot of nice toys.


I still need to configure the datavault they're going to have to crack. It's basically a non-wireless Rating 4 device which is going to attempt to administer horrible rape to anyone who slots it who isn't Vory, and then hijack their systems to call home. I figure I'll just use a Rating 4 version of set-up I have on Lyubov's commlink.

[ZeroPoint]

Looks like a good setup for what your going for. If it was me though I would include at least one fast car in there. Even if its a sedan. Or a jackrabbit. Something that's maneuverable and has some speed. And maybe 1-2 guys in that trailer. With a team of mages, it seems like it would be just too easy to take down a just 2 vehicles and only 4 guys each. Even with the spirits and drones. As is, my group of players could probably handle this with no real problem and with no magic in the group at all. But they're the type of players that spend 2 sessions planning, 1 session running.

[Kolinho]

Looks like a good setup for what your going for. If it was me though I would include at least one fast car in there. Even if its a sedan. Or a jackrabbit. Something that's maneuverable and has some speed. And maybe 1-2 guys in that trailer. With a team of mages, it seems like it would be just too easy to take down a just 2 vehicles and only 4 guys each. Even with the spirits and drones. As is, my group of players could probably handle this with no real problem and with no magic in the group at all. But they're the type of players that spend 2 sessions planning, 1 session running.

That's the Shadowrun way, or at least should be. Runners who wing it die.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Welp, I gave my players the what's what...


They've decided that the best course of action is to tamper with the ship bringing the goods towards Seattle, so it offloads a completely wrong container to the smuggler who will meet the ship and take the container to the Vory, and arrange for the delivery of the container with the real goods to the destination of their choice (the Ancients, probably by way of a proxy or two.)


I have to say I can't actually fault them for this one. What's getting me is that this is frustrating the ninja/street sam on two levels. First, he's a combat character and the only real fight we had, he missed. Second, he's kind of boggled by the sheer amount of planning that players will put into a Shadowrun, when his preferred M.O. is more along the lines of 'make a rough outline, show up and wing it.' So I have a couple of strategists and a pink mohawk. Also, the AI is chronically AFK/no-show due to real life and this has left the Face to do the hacking. She got relatively far into it, having hacked herself an admin account on a Rating 4 device within four hours, but then got stymied when she realized she didn't speak Russian; she left to figure out how to fix that problem, but then the AI showed up and cowboy'd it, hacking it all on the fly. The device rolled godlike on its rolls to detect and as a result both admin accounts were flagged as fraudulent (though the device couldn't actually delete them.) It tried to terminate itself, the AI kept shutting down its self-termination attempts and beating up the IC it kept launching while the Face liberated data.


So, yeah. Now I need to figure out how they're going to handle redirecting cargo while it's on a ship at sea, and come up with some violence to satisfy the street samurai.

[Yerameyahu]

Linguasofts are trivial to find, in real time.

But yeah, that's the central problem of SR, I think. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Violence, and smartness.

[kzt]

They've decided that the best course of action is to tamper with the ship bringing the goods towards Seattle, so it offloads a completely wrong container to the smuggler who will meet the ship and take the container to the Vory, and arrange for the delivery of the container with the real goods to the destination of their choice (the Ancients, probably by way of a proxy or two.)

That seems like a darn good start of a plan. A lot better then fighting head on.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Linguasofts are trivial to find, in real time.

I know, right? I thought they were 200 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) per rating point, one of the other players said they were 500 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) per rating point, I alt-tabbed to check the book and when I got back, the AI had said "screw this, hook my nexus up, let me at it."

I mean, hell, you'd think a Russian linguasoft would be useful. Especially since you can find a cracked one for 50 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) per rating point in dark corners of the Matrix. Hell's bells, it's like the Russian language is evolving fast enough for it to suffer degradation!

But yeah, that's the central problem of SR, I think. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Violence, and smartness.

That seems like a darn good start of a plan. A lot better then fighting head on.

Indeed it is, but the sam is getting restless. He wants to apply his monokatana to some fools, or pull out his Predator and start busting caps. Or at the very least do some infiltration.


So now I'm thinking of requiring some physical shit on the vessel which will require them to deploy him to the container ship so he can fiddle with things (like RFID tags) and stuff. Of course, how to get him out there... Their current plan is to summon a Spirit of Air and have it fly him out to the ship. The ship is presently (game time) off CalFree, and it is moving northward, but still!

[Shortstraw]

Hmm, have it hit a ward on the way out and make him take a reaction test not to fly off through the ward while his spirit is stuck on the other side.

[Murrdox]

Indeed it is, but the sam is getting restless. He wants to apply his monokatana to some fools, or pull out his Predator and start busting caps. Or at the very least do some infiltration.

I have this problem as well. Every once in awhile as a GM I have to force the player's hands a bit and put them in a situation where no matter what they do, SOMEONE is going to throw down and weapons are drawn. I've had many, many an encounter that has been meticulously planned out on my part, only to be out-witted by my own players thanks to several gaming sessions consisting of nothing but planning. I don't want my Street Sams to get bored because he hasn't gotten to even roll initiative in 4 playing sessions or more.

[kzt]

I have this problem as well. Every once in awhile as a GM I have to force the player's hands a bit and put them in a situation where no matter what they do, SOMEONE is going to throw down and weapons are drawn. I've had many, many an encounter that has been meticulously planned out on my part, only to be out-witted by my own players thanks to several gaming sessions consisting of nothing but planning. I don't want my Street Sams to get bored because he hasn't gotten to even roll initiative in 4 playing sessions or more.

You should never allow a player to create a character concept where the only thing that they do is fight. It just doesn't work in SR.

[Murrdox]

He actually has the full Infiltration skillset, and Athletics as well. My players usually decide after a ton of planning that it's easier to Magic your way in instead of using Infiltration, or just have a good fake SIN and walk in the front door instead of using Athletics and climbing the wall.

The campaign I'm currently writing I'm hoping will solve some of those problems, and give him a chance to use some skills.

The character amusingly has his best moments in social situations simply because he has a few underworld contacts that the group makes use of fairly often.

[AppliedCheese]

You should never allow a player to create a character concept where the only thing that they do is fight. It just doesn't work in SR.

Well, that's not strictly true. If the actual player is mature enough, the sam/ninja can easily be the team leader, or at least the tactical synchronization guy. Typically mages/hackers/faces and such get so fixated on their part of the threat that they tend to get immersed, with just basic situational understanding after things kick off. The sam is the guy who can step back from the chaos and orchestrate. Since shooting is typically either part of the plan, or a reaction, he works well as the team reserve too, able to commit when needed.

Also, the fact that he isn't trying to maximize his dicepool and dig through the rulebook every two seconds, he can actual try to look forward, and prevent trainwrecks BEFORE the team is in "oh shit" mode.

Now, if the player isn't the type, he should still be deep in tactical analysis and rehearsals. He's the guy who should, even if he's not team lead master, be the one thinking "man, If I had to defend this macguffin, I would totally make sure something could shoot from...THERE", be doing route analysis, and generally working his part in the drills and SOP management, plus all the other good tactical bits. Basically, become the physical world subject matter expert.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I'm thinking for this to work, there's going to need to be a physical infiltration on the ship. That will be problematic since the ship is at sea and they don't have any pirates or smuggler friends with helicopters or something. Their fallback for every occasion is Magic.

But the one thing Magic can't do is interact with electronics. I think something's going to need to happen, something requiring good, hard, honest, factory-assembled metahuman eyes. The ship has a crew of only six, so I figure it's not remotely impossible for them to be all asleep or belowdecks at the same time. That would be infiltration hour - the hackers hacking, mages doing astral overwatch and confuddling the Watchers, and the samurai gets onboard to activate the wireless links to the cargo-handling system and swap the RFID chips on containers.

[AppliedCheese]

Generally speaking, cheap contract astral overwatch would be expected in anything that bothers to secure itself. Even if its not direct fighting, the moment a spell is cast or is lihgitng on the atsral within x, the alert level of the target should go up until the contrcat overwatch can verify whats up. Basically, using magic should be the equivalent of firing a gun. Just doing it is a tip off.

[ShadowDragon8685]

The ship has a wagemage aboard who has a couple of watchers patrolling, but other than that, I don't think they'd be very heavily invested in astral security.

[The Jake]

Generally speaking, cheap contract astral overwatch would be expected in anything that bothers to secure itself. Even if its not direct fighting, the moment a spell is cast or is lihgitng on the atsral within x, the alert level of the target should go up until the contrcat overwatch can verify whats up. Basically, using magic should be the equivalent of firing a gun. Just doing it is a tip off.

That is the way I run low grade Magical security solutions. A watcher spirit or bound spirit doing overwatch is an easy solution. One service to "notify me if someone casts a spell or uses a spirit against these targets" or some such.

- J.

[kzt]

If there are only 6 guys on the ship why would they have a mage? 6 guys means they have no security team on board, just a bridge and engine watch.

[The Wrestling Tr...]

So they need to infiltrate a vory ship right?

A lot of fun would be a ship possesed by a master shedim (Spoiler)

[ Spoiler ]

(ghost cartels anyone?)

But I would give them a little surprise on the ship if they act careless without researching and do some background work before trying to get on the ship.
Give them a character profile of a high rating vory officer if they search for it. The vory officer likes to have "pets" around him for his personal security like 2-3 Barghest or Hellhounds.
So they could get poisoned food to kill the dogs or try to silence them otherwise if they get on the ship. Maybe the hellhounds are in cages and the cages are alarm triggered.

Other possibility would be 2 different nexus on the ship. 1 nexus for basic operation, crew members and logs while the other is basicly shut off from the rest of the ship and is only accessible through a physical terminal with a datajack and has no signal rating. (frocing them to infiltrate the navigation room).

You could also let the vorys smuggle rare animals for big game hunters and if they screw up with infiltrating or hacking the terminal they accidentaly open the maglocks for all the cargo containers and all hell breaks loose on the ship.

Another idea would be that the ship uses an old navigation system (cpt. doesn't trust technology and is really old) and thus they need to stay on the ship and manually redirect it to another port while defending it against vory speedboats that try to capture it back.

[ShadowDragon8685]

It's not a "Vory" ship. It's a commercial container vessel.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I've been thinking of reminding them that they're going to need to physically infiltrate the ship by way of a fluff piece. I don't want it to be too obvious, obviously, so I was thinking of framing it in a different context - a delivery in space. Say, one of the Jackpointers (Orbital DK, because that's his thing,) shares a story that cargo hauler X was docking at Station Y where Companies A and B had installations. Company B wanted a crate Company A was receiving and had put a dummy box on the hauler, then had some expert hackers hack the hauler's manifest to switch the delivery location of the two containers, so Company A gets the dummy box and Company B gets the goods. But, because the containers were chipped and the chips didn't match up with the delivery manifest, it sent up a red flag and the hauler called back to base to verify their orders, which didn't match up. So Company B gets egg on their face (in the Shadows, where everyone knows they did it, anyway,) and Company A got their goods, all because Company B thought they could pull a fast one without paying for real Shadowrunners who would have caught that.

Then rub it in by having him point out that they got tripped up on the same basic security measures every commercial hauling vessel dirtside uses, and they really should've known better.

[thenightaflame]

I don't think I'd bother with reminding them, but I'd let it be pretty clear that they screwed up and fast if the job goes south in that manner. Still give them a chance at swiping the goods, but now they've got to do it at another point in the delivery phase, do it fast, and against a higher level of security as the Vory'll know somethings up.

Or possibly not even a higher level of security, but with a single nondescript tailing team whose job is not to interfere in any way with the highjacking, but find out who it is that's after the Vory's assets and to whom they should send a "thinking of you" card*

If you want to spice up the action on the ship, there's always the possibility that another set of runners is after a different item on the ship or maybe another group (Yaks, some corporation, etc.) is using that shame ship to transport some semi-important material and has a couple of people on board (maybe hidden away in a shipping container). Possibly trite, but it can be a danger of hitting some third party outfit: unless you really do your leg work you can't be very sure that what you have going down is all that's going down.

*Or wetwork team, maybe both, dealer's choice. But if you leave it at the card, you also can run with the "well, chummers, you owe the Vory big time and their sending you to do this ridiculously dangerous job. The payment? Oh, it's generous indeed. It's having various bones remaining in one piece and the notable absence of a bullet in your head" thing.

[Manunancy]

So they need to infiltrate a vory ship right?

A lot of fun would be a ship possesed by a master shedim (Spoiler)

[ Spoiler ]

(ghost cartels anyone?)

So they could get poisoned food to kill the dogs or try to silence them otherwise if they get on the ship. Maybe the hellhounds are in cages and the cages are alarm triggered.

Killing anyone or even anything on ship that has a master shedim onboard can open a very nasty can of worms. But it can be an object lesson for trigger-happy PCs (though it can drive them to even more excessive violence, on the priciple that a corpse spread in finger-sized fragments all over the room is unlikely to cause trouble. The PCs aren't that sort of cleaning staff...)

[ShadowDragon8685]

Given the easy availability of vibroweapons, I imagine that a Shedim "Gotcha!" like that once would just ensure that all future bodies created wind up being segmented at the joints.


And I'm gonna go with the reminder fluff piece. It's one thing to hold their hands, another entirely to let them not realize that there's an entire job that needs doing to complete the run.