3rd edition smuggler campaign writeup, Narrative write up of games - feedback welcome. Options

[Falkus]

Just stumbled across this. Looks pretty neat; gonna download and read 'em (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Kren Cooper]

Just stumbled across this. Looks pretty neat; gonna download and read 'em (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

@Falkus - hope you enjoy, and just to mention that feedback is *very* welcome!

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 375 is now published, continuing book 13 of the Smuggler story.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6andi42vbylb...y77n5o&dl=0

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
Good evening folks!
So – here’s the slightly reworked plot encounter, adapted somewhat to fit the change of plans from the players. Originally, I had expected them to go to Ludmilla’s dam to do a quick stop off, and I could get them the job offer from there, to run down with the parts for the horde into the edge of their territory. But, as they went instead to the Quarry, that required a bit of a rethink.

As they’ve thrown a spanner in my planning, I decided to do the same to them – making the mission a little more complicated than it was otherwise going to be. The cargo was now shipping from the Quarry, so I quickly came up with a new team:
The Badgers
Badger - troll, female, black stripe tattoos on the face, small for a troll, rigger with VCR 1, Wires 2, spurs, eyes+ears, troll sized drum fed shotgun
Daisy - human, fe(male) trans, decker, datajack, R3-4 deck, Uzi III with smartlink, jammer, white noise generator, basic electronic gear
Reaper - dwarf, male, street sam, Wires-3 +dermal armour, SL2, box mag MMG mounted on light security armour gyromount plus, heavy sledgehammer
Broody - human, male, sorcerer, uninitiated, Treat 4, Lightning bolt 5, Increase reflexes 1 (SF), Stealth 4, Shapechange 5, Power bolt 5
Not a “great” team, they’re entirely reasonable though, and perhaps represent a team that the players could have come up with if they’d made different decisions at char-gen. They’re also perhaps karam-pool 2 kind of range, so very early in their careers still, with the limits on skills and attributes that implies. Doesn’t make them stupid though, or unambitious…

Badgers Beauty, Kamaz-6560 8x8 heavy transport
Handling 3/6, Speed 85, Accel 2, Body 6, Armour 3, Sig 2, Auto 1, Pilot NA, Sensor 1, Cargo 150, Load 10,000, Seating 2+1b, Entry 2d+1x, Fuel D, Tank 750, Econ 3km/l, Avail 4/1 week, Cost 120K. Rigger adaption, winch, spotlights, partial living amenity
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kam..._IDELF-2008.jpg
That gave them a nice truck – something the team could and should be able to empathise with, and hopefully reinforce that “this could be them” – just back in time to about half a dozen sessions into the campaign. The nature of the truck meant I could put enough cargo in it to be an issue for the players, requiring either multiple trips (and thus time, effort and expense) or difficult decisions in terms of what to take – and of course then dealing with the end customer.

With this team departing the quarry and heading for the smuggler stop on the silk road, I then had a cast around to find out where they could be that could see them getting ambushed, and needing a rescue. The Volga river is a major obstacle at this point, with very limited crossing points, that would dictate a couple of routes to anyone wanting to head east. Saratov seemed like a nice location – it has an oil-industry, so plenty of polluting nasty heavy industry to portray, some background count to let Tads feel she was getting value from her filtering, and plenty of blue-collar workers that would naturally encourage organised crime. It also has a military airport, so I could again hit the team with some air-defence radar and make them operate somewhat circumspectly, and add a bit of tension there.
And, even nicer, I found a lovely petrol station just off the main highway that would be an ideal spot for a shakedown – easy to fine, makes sense in the context of the operation, and with good terrain to keep the fight somewhat contained in terms of location, visible to onlookers for potential fallout later, far enough away to make “waves” of bad guys work ok, but close enough that I could send hordes of Vory mooks at them and make this a credible threat.

The location I used is here, in case anyone wants to see: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/%D0%9B%...SoASAFQAw%3D%3D

I like grounding my locations like this when I can, as it makes it very, VERY easy to just share my screen, or throw a quick snip of the map into the channel to share with the players. I don’t think I have a bad command of vocabulary, or lack a sense of the descriptive… but sometimes it can be incredibly useful to share a picture.

Putting up the picture of the truck meant that I’d not only covered the basics, but probably also answered a whole raft of further questions the team might have about the situation. Likewise putting up the location map meant they could see the general dimensions and layout of the place, and everyone had an understanding of how things looked – but most importantly, everyone had the same shared understanding and “mental picture” as I did. This is something I’ve noticed before where someone perhaps missed one tiny, but vital part of a description, or misunderstood some exposition, and as a result did something that would otherwise not have made sense, or exposed their character to a weird situation – because they were operating on a flawed premise. The danger here is that the player doesn’t know they’ve missed something and are working on bad logic until the situation reaches a critical juncture – when they suddenly go “hang on a minute, that doesn’t make sense”… and then you’re faced with trying to unpick the mess, possibly roll back some options or events, or trying to save the situation somehow.

Being able to use the resources like google maps can also help with plot points to emerge as well of course. When Tads decided to create an illusion of the shifted gas station, I could drop a pin on the map and look at the terrain – and share that with the players to show the situation. It was on looking at the picture that I could see the reinforced crash barrier on the side of the road, and then plot out what would happen – and in my head I could see the dramatic crash play out!
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/%D0%9B%...SoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Based on that, and the fact that Tads got a BIG handful of successes on her trid-phantasm, and the bad guys didn’t get a single success to spot the illusion, to me it decided the fight there and then. The impact would likely wreck most of the vehicles, and damage most of the Vory… and then striking from ambush, the team would pretty much annihilate them with no actual risk – especially as they were all in milspec. So, rather than rolling for initiative, I just gave them a *very* short summary of their asskicking excellence, and moved on to the aftermath.

The use of the high-force Shape Earth spell let them hide the truck easily enough given the time they had, and with a spirit to conceal the site as well, I couldn’t see the street-level mobsters getting any joy with finding it – and so the player get away scott-free. I’m all good with that – they deserve a nice win like this from time to time, and it should hopefully reinforce that they are now “prime runners”, and moving at a much higher level.

Next session they get to do the drop off, do a 2nd run to get the rest, and then supervise the delivery to the horde – and Kai gets to decide if he’s taking the money for the delivery run and leaving Badger with a big repair bill and no funds to sort it, or if he’s going to play good Samaritan. I honestly don’t know which way it’s going to go… or if they’re going to come up with some other weird and wacky idea and we’re all off on a tangent!

The joys of being a GM…

And as usual, here are the notes from the game session to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. 5/03/2062, Location: 55.36008, 36.30197 , Time 21:15
2. Tads - how long are we staying at the quarry.
3. Marius 1-2 days, if you're willing to help.
4. Aswon - plan for an overnight then at least. 750km to quarry, about 90 mins. 10:45 ETA. Team do a bugscan just in case after leaving the airbase. Aswon - idle speculation about taking out a hovercraft. Shimazu checking in with Saito, just to keep in touch. 10:30 call in for permission to land, 10:40 quarry calls back.
5. Are you carrying cargo, are you available for work? Marius checks with team.
6. Vishtar calls, Badger, gunfight, unknown. Tads starts to suit up in the milspec. Team - we might be able to do 2 runs. Kai - is there a time limit. Vishtar: - no, not due to tomorrow, ground transport. Get description of Badgers. Set passphrase "pineapple", Vishtar will call them now. Aswon - we get the team out? OV - cargo is the priority. Kai - is it worth an astral scout. Tads - probably not, after armouring up. All except Marius in milspec.
7. Crossing the volga, just under 10k wide at this point. Fields on the far side, either gas/oil extraction, or industrial farming. Drops due to airfield.
8. Get to the ambush site, Kamaz-6560 under the canopy, two burning vehicles blocking the exit. 6 dismembered people spread across the tarmac
9. Marius drops the team off, deploys scout drones and goes up for overwatch. Kamov has taken large damage to left side. Tads verified the ambushers are dead.
10. Aswon - Shimazu and Kai go in first, Hunter and I can check the ambushers. Shimazu taking shield. Tads following Shimazu.
11. Reaper - "stop right there" - Kai PINEAPPLE! Say again. Pineapple - annansi. We were sent to rescue you. "Ok, glad to see you" Is the cargo intact, anything special about your team before we patch you up." Calls for badger to get down. Aswon spots shotgun. K-who ambushed you. They're all over the forecourt, but probably called for backup. Can you move at all. No - trucks fucked. Aswon warns reinforcements are coming in. Marius - ok - checking. Kai - we'll get some of the cargo away, then come back for a 2nd trip. Tads - only need to get away a bit, into earth - then I can sink it and hide it. Kai - can we hide it. Tads -difficult to hide and move the earth at the same time. Kai calls Marius in - he advises 2 mins. Kai to badger - get your team and gear. Who were they. Vory. Anyone here? Attendent and one shopper in the building.
12. Hunter and Aswon check out the goons and get descriptions. Goons commlinks have opsec. Snag one for hunter.
13. 2 panel vans, a land cruiser and some motorbikes coming in formation marius advises, eta 7-8 mins. Tads - what kind of illusion can I put up here to suck them in? Team - illusion of nothing? Tads flat illusion across the entrance to hide things and make false entrance onto the field. Tads levitates to the roof. MArius coming in to land.
14. Daisy (Hunter noticed did nothing), arm injury, treated. Broody - sucking chest wound.
15. Open the cargo containers, see the 40 pallets. Set timer for 5 minutes. Shimazu and Hunter can get 14 pallets moved over to the Broadsword. Tads moves a couple with levitate. Tads asks Daisy to go deal with the camera footage in the service station. "Sure".
16. Do you think the vory knew about this stuff? Don't think so - it's for the horde. Sync to the other teams R1 unencrypted comms. Kai and Aswon strapping stuff down in the back.
17. Marius warns that convoy is 60-90 seconds out. Vehicles are smoking a little, wind to the east. Aswon (Purdey / Hollow points) and Tads up to the roof. Tads puts the illusion up - "moves" the station 20m to the south.
18. Hunter between the crashed vehicles, AR with AV, Kai by the back of the bird. Shimazu next to Hunter.
19. Vory come sweeping in, 30-40mph impact with barrier. First van hop, 2nd van rear-end, bikers swerve. Tads stops illusion. Brutal violence happens. Badgers team impressed - early in their career. Kai sees Reaper having his kills sniped.
20. Discussion amongst team - take and bury? Marius - couple more cars, couple more bikes, panel truck. Tads - let's push it and bury it round the back, then come back for it later.
21. Spot damage, but it will roll with difficulty. Push onto the grass and down the "ramp" into the undercroft. Shape earth again to conceal. Spirit to conceal. Team back, clean spell sig and police their brass. Marius lifts off, weight rumblings, head to Grigories.
22. Kai - we've got a deal for the fuel - drop off point. Arrange to do drop offs and then come back to unearth. Heading towards Grigories… endex

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 376 is now published, continuing book 13 of the Smuggler story.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6andi42vbylb...y77n5o&dl=0

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
Playing catchup with the updates a little, as Dumpshock seemed to be down for a few days – but hey, maybe that just means I need to remember to throw Redjack another donation and thank them for their continued efforts on keeping the platform alive and running, and letting me post here.

Fairly straight forward action this week. They’d rescued Badger and her crew, recovered the cargo, and had the means to do the delivery, and seemed inclined to do so. So with that, it was very simple for them to ferry the crew and the first half of the cargo over to the next smuggler stop, drop it off, and go back for the remainder.

I was a little surprised that they didn’t “get” the reason for the New Silk Road being quiet, and that I had to drop back to giving them an Int check and using some of their smuggling routes skills to work out that it was probably because the horde were up in the area, and looking for cargo vessels they could pick off and scavenge… but that’s always the fun side of setting puzzles for people. What might seem obvious to you, can be a complete brick wall for others!

It reminds me of a live-roleplay event I went to many years ago, where we had to go on a “linear” (a small quest in a separate area of the site, with just 15 of the players to go do a mission with a specific goal). On the linear, we ran into a puzzle room, and every guess wrong on the puzzle basically inflicted a mortal wound on the person guessing – which started to really chew through our healing resources. And nobody got the puzzle. We spent nearly an hour in the room trying to work out it, much to the horror of the referee running the linear – until eventually we got so low on resources, and so fearful of death that we backed out. Aborted the mission, tail between legs, and went home. Unfortunately, the ref team had assumed that we would succeed, and an absolutely plot-vital McGuffin was at the end of the linear, and they had to re-write the plot overnight to allow it to be discovered some other way, or it would have broken the entire event… As it turns out the following morning a 2nd linear team went looking, and one of the players almost broke his toe as he literally walked into the plot device in the first room they encountered. Needless to say, it came across to the player base as somewhat ham-fisted, and the mockery of how they handled it was… strong.

So, anyway – they didn’t “get” my cunning puzzle, but after some reasonable rolls, I presented it as a possible explanation, the players nodded sagely and thought it made sense, and then we carried on with the evening.

They went back and forth, got the rest of the gear and got back to Grigories. Running rings around the entirely average policeman on guard duty was no problem at all for the team at this point, just like defeating the Vory in the previous episode – so I just glossed over it and told them how well they’d done.

That let us forward on to the meeting with the Horde.
Visiting Horde members
5 scout birds: Pilots, not riggers, hand weapons https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/roadwarrior/images/5/53/Gyrocopter_2015.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20151121124433 ://https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/r...20151121124433 ://https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/r...20151121124433
2 Light choppers, Pilot+1 gunners, armed with LMGs - scout units, no armour, lightweight https://aerocorner.com/wp-content/uploads/2...l-47-G-MASH.jpg
2 sky-cranes, multi-crew, MMGs, light-armour, heavy cargo capacity: https://247wallst.com/wp-content/uploads/20...-54-Tarhe-1.jpg
1 monitor - high altitude remote pilot / autonomous drone system, no crew, no weapons, no armour, high endurance: https://247wallst.com/wp-content/uploads/20...H-50-DASH-1.jpg
Repair shop 3 - paired airships with repair platform and cargo storage: https://www.bing.com/images/create/two-larg...&ajaxserp=0

I’d spent a little while looking for the right kind of imagery to go with the Horde – I really wanted a mad-max kind of vibe, something a little bit wild, feral and chaotic. I’d already let the team see the horde main fleet at very long range, and they’d gone to efforts to avoid them – so this was the first time they’d get to see them up close.

Thankfully google image search didn’t disappoint and I was able to find some Korean war / Vietnam era stuff, some movie props, the old faithful sky crane and a little AI image generation (as the steampunk alternatives just looked too ‘heavy’ for what I was after. Some of this might rely on Shadowrun future/alt tech to be even vaguely plausible, but I really loved the idea of a floating menance just cruising around the steppes of Turkestan, with people never knowing when they might turn up and just snatch a bunch of cargo and disappear again! The mega-corps probably just see it as a cost of doing business, and ignore the human cost – after all, it affects all their competitors too!

The players never got to see the “Monitor” – it making a really good stealth roll, and none of them spotted it! That actually plays well, as if they’d decided to kick off, something would have been able to report back, and then they would have been in for some interesting times…

After that, the players again surprised me a little by not wanting to get involved with the horde, staying well clear of the two NPCs that came out, and leaving it to Badger to do the negotiations. Well – that was their choice, and may affect them later with a lack of contact- but that’s for a lot further down the line.

Still, they got the cargo delivered, saved Badger and her team, got paid and got their fuel costs covered, and earned some more rep with the Quarry – so it’s all good! Now they’re at the base, doing a couple of days maintenance on the Broadsword, and then they think they’re going home for some R&R.

No. No they’re not. I have other plans for them. Big winged plans. Plans that threaten to eat them if they don’t do as they’re told.

Especially for Marius. He looooves the dragons. I know he does really. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

And as usual, here are the notes from the game session to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. 5/03/2062, Location: 55.36008, 36.30197 , Time 23:15
2. 916km to Grigories diner, took 2 hours with slightly degraded speed from load, so arrived 23:15. No other customers, just a few lights on. Get enough perception checks, for a description. Astral is quiet, but not dead.
3. Marius asks Kai to call. Tads checks astrally. They are watching trid. Kai gets out of office angry message "it's late"
4. Ask Badger - he wasn't due until tomorrow afternoon. Land ok, after a few minutes a silage truck drives past - team can see/smell it.
5. Check with Vishtar, yeah, grigorie is a PITA. Opens door, is rude, grigoriy is not expecting anything. Badger arranges to store stuff in the shed. Offload the bird into storage. Get to see nearly all aircraft parts. Tads - this stuff must be very expensive - lots of running costs, how is this working? Kai - wonder if this horde is out mugging people, and that's why the road is quiet? Are they taking out a convoy somewhere to strip for parts/cargo to sell, to pay for this stuff? Under non-combat situation, Shimazu, Kai, Marius and Tads spot that Daisy is male. Tads does fix/makeover on people to tidy them up.
6. Badger asks if the team will recover cargo, then wait and take all 4 back to the truck.
7. Aswon asks tads to go check the station astrally. CSI underway. Vehicles have stopped burning, cones blocking off 2nd crash area. Investigator taking photos and examining
8. Team bedding down for a while, to let them finish. Get tads to do another recon in the morning.
9. Morning news goes mental, Ares landing on a rock. Not a dragon egg. Other corps "well done, whatever, we didn't want to race anyway..."
10. Breakfast and stuff. recon shows gas station quiet, but cleared mostly. Tads leaves a new spirit. Team head over in Broadsword, gas station shut, bit tidied up.
11. Hunter - how can we take out the cameras... invis, jacking in etc.
12. Land in the field at the back, next to the buried truck. Tads sticks a dome up, then shapes earth to get at the truck, load the cargo, rebury the truck, leave the spirit, head back to the diner. Arrive about 2pm.
13. Tads - Badger, do you want dropping in town to find a mechanic / parts, rather than back at the truck? No, we need the truck out, we can get a cab to town.
14. TEam chill, Marius calls home, go for runs, Tads talks to Broody. He's eager to learn, but confused.
15. A bit before dusk, sound of aircraft from the south.
16. Give details of inbound. Badger approaches, says hello. Guns up/back. Badger explains. Waves the skycranes in, mech and mage get out. Griffin watcher spirits and F3 invoked spirits guarding skycranes. Walking around like they own the place.
17. 40 mins to load the containers. Marius checks on the vehicles during takeoff. Maintenance good, looks bad. Very light, almost no armour.
18. Badger relieved as the horde leave. Back to the gas station. Drop them off. Then 30-40min to quarry. Land at the quarry. Directed to bay 1. Also present in bay 2 = Half-Pint, Bay 4 = Rising sun
19. Team don't initially recognise rising sun / make int checks. Land, spot them, meet half-pint. Vishtar pays the team 20k and arranges refuelled.

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 377 is now published, continuing book 13 of the Smuggler story.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6andi42vbylb...y77n5o&dl=0

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
A low stakes week this time – not much in the way of action, nor a huge amount of plot development, character development or even world-building really. Instead we had two very mild social encounters, and time for a bit of a breather.

It’s not always possible, or probably even desirable to have things going at a million miles per hour, and you can’t keep up tension, tempo and excitement all the time. I’ve always felt that if you want a rollercoaster plot, then you have to accept that for every super-exciting downhill, high speed, no brakes, adrenaline filled section, you equally have to have some uphill climbs, steadily clanking away at low speed, building up the necessary potential – establishing your plots, building up your NPCs and laying the groundwork for what’s to come. And equally there needs to be those little gentle curves, the calm before the storm, the transitions from the uphills to the downhills, where you can look around, take stock, see where you are and hopefully anticipate what’s to come.

With the team back at the quarry and looking to get some maintenance done, I dropped in the Rising Sun team, just so they had a chance to follow up on their meeting, and to see their rigger – if they wanted to. And then I added Half-Pint to give them another team that is somewhat closer to themselves in a lot of ways. Half-Pint started with a very over-the-top caricature, but are actually a very solid team with plenty of skills – they move small cargos to be sure, but they will be a valuable contact for Marius in the future if he needs some engineering expertise that understands the shadow side of the world.

Then it was back to the ranch for downtime – with most of the team not having much to actually do specifically. Tads has taken advantage of 3 weeks off to do some frantic spell learning and get some more offensive spells with a force 5 laser bolt, and a new utility spell in the form of a force 5 night vision, as well as upping the force on her create food – also to 5.

The last bit of the session was contact from the heroin supplier they’ve worked with before, wanting them to do another delivery for them. Here’s where I love the grey world of shadowrun… they’re generally on the side of good – especially Tads – and have their “code” – staying away from most wetwork and kidnappings… but here’s the team shipping 30kg of class A drugs to the underworlds in western Europe, where it’s going to act as the catalyst for a lot of violence, crime, desperation and addiction. Is that their fault? Are they responsible? Or are they just a vehicle?

I was half expecting them to turn the job down – but the prospect of some relatively easy money obviously appealed, and they’ve signed up for the delivery! So now we’ll get to see how they interact with the Serbian Mafia, and the fallout that comes from the operation. 


And as usual, here are the notes from the game session to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. 06/03/2062, Location: 50.1149, 43.20295 , Time 22:00
2. Tads - so eat, sleep, start work on the maintenance tomorrow? Shimazu - talk to the other teams? Kai.. yeah, sounds like a good plan. Team settle in for a meal and a relax around the tables.
3. Kai talk to Rising Sun first. Introduce himself. General intros, Kai explains their strengths, swap details.
4. Hunter/Marius detect probes into electronics. Subtle... team agree to go dark after 60 seconds. Shimazu spots Root looking guilty. Mentions "that's weird", gives her side eye. Kai gives her a wink. Grunt gives her the red-hand. Get some info on the Rising sun - mostly legit transport, legal flight plans.
5. Kai asks Marius for list of stops that have paved strip, pass over to Rising Sun - excluding Gwoks. Breaks the ice properly - get details in return from Grunt. Aswon thinks grunt is ex-officer, maybe up to captain level. Picks up some California / ucas slang/accent. Shimazu+Marius spots Raven getting twitchy / antsy, trigger for them heading out.
6. Coming up to 23:00, go to talk to the other team.
7. Introduction to Gonzo. "So, which one of you is the pilot then!" Team points to Marius. Drags stool over to Afterburner game. Challenges Marius.
8. Gonzo is good, beats Marius. Compliments, but gives good advice.
9. Rematch, it's a draw. Invites back to cave 2. Shows Marius his stuff. Marius returns the favour. Gonzo impressed with the broadsword. Explains theatre and missions. Hunter goes to check out the arena - brings back memories.
10. Tuesday 7th, morning rituals, Aswon remembers to put PPE on, goes for a run. Limestone quarry, manually quarried - not despoiling the earth. Tads tries to summon and is rebuffed.
11. Meet Victor in the rec room, arrange maintenance on the bird. Get in tools, tables, cherry picker etc. Take 2 days.
12. 08/03/2062 Aztlan announce/launch major offensive into the jungle, slash and burn, agent orange - good PR job
13. Tads puts some fruit out in the rec room. Rising sun ship out weds lunch, Half-pint remain.
14. Thurs afternoon, all work is done. Heading back to the ranch. 1200km 2.5 hours. Back to the ranch ok - land underground. 6.5k fuel left in the base tanks - Marius wants to top up.
15. Tads tops up all the food at the ranch. Team talk, decide to have a few weeks off. Marius driving this - wants to spend time with Nadia and kid.
16. 15/3 Aztlan, weather, army kicked out of offensive. Number of shadow jobs heading into the Yucatan - high risk.
17. Actual downtime
18. 27/3/62 Dakura calls, 30kg of product to ship. Bring your credstick to buy the product. Kai - ok, we'll be over soon...

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 378 is now published, continuing book 13 of the Smuggler story.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6andi42vbylb...y77n5o&dl=0

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
Not a huge amount of action this week, but a couple of nice little RP moments, at least I hope so anyway.

To start off with, as soon as the session kicked off, Tads started off a discussion about Daruka and drug-smuggling, questioning if this was something we wanted to do or not. The discussion was well-mannered amongst the players, but actually quite involved – certainly more than the story might otherwise indicate, as it wavered and wandered between in-game and out-of-game at various points. Tads tends to be a ‘white-hat’ kind of player, and is generally quite moral, which can put her at odds with some of the rest of the team. On the whole the team are *fairly* good guys in practice, straying towards neutral at times, and perhaps neutral-selfish where needed… but they’re not baddies… but as was raised to them, peddling very addictive class A drugs that have a clear and easily provable link to ruined lives is hardly the acts of a bunch of doo-gooders.

Balanced against that of course was that *anything* they smuggled is generally only smuggled because of restrictions by a government or corp, and includes things like guns… which generally kill people and mess up lives just as badly. The discussion went round a bit, and it was made very clear that Tads was raising it for the future – but was of the opinion that they’d agreed to do the job now, and she didn’t want to back out.

But, when the end of the discussion came around, I got the general feeling that the team were not wanting to do too much more in the way of drug smuggling if they could help it, it being a means to an end. Even though Daruka is somewhat professional, and a fairly ‘safe’ bet as far as international drug smuggling goes, it’s not what the team want to get a rep for. That in turn was going to shape how they were going to interact with the drug-lord, and how much they were willing to negotiate on things.

Heading over, my random events chart had thrown up a mana-storm for them to encounter, but some good perception rolls spotted that way before it could become an issue, and it was easily avoided. I trolled the ‘unusual spirits’ before them, and the magic users were a little curious – but not enough to try and get any closer and investigate, so we moved on from that. Tempting as it is to force an interaction like this, I always try to remind myself that this is *our* story, not just mine, and that the players should have plenty of agency. If I’m going to railroad the players, I try to be considerably more subtle about it than just have them blunder into a storm like this… and besides, there’s ways and means. If they encounter some of these spirits again, I’ll try to make sure that it’s in a situation where they have some unusual powers or a weird twist – and then they might wonder “if only we’d investigated these buggers previously, we’d have known about that strength of theirs, or we’d know what their weakness was before they tore someone’s leg off!” Don’t beat up your players – they can beat themselves up FAR more effectively!

A quick side trip to Mary-Pat, the precious gem miner let them get some magical telesma for future use, as well as keeping touch with a contact. I also dropped in a little tidbit about the village doing well, with no apparent reason to see if that would peak their interest – but again they decided not to bite. Or at least not at this time…

So with that done, it was down to the compound to buy the drugs! Aswon was chuntering away about the deal, so I had him roll a small unit tactics roll to think about things logically – and admit that actually this really made sense from Daruka’s perspective. He’d sold the drugs, so now it was all on the team. He’d been paid, so it was up to them to arrange the sale and take the risks – and thus was excellent business sense! Just sucks to be the middle-men now…

Also at this point was a brief rehash of the situation they encountered in the French pub – a situation that would have been ‘scary’ at the start of their careers, but was now something that they could really just ignore, or even take advantage of (as had been discussed at the start of the night).

Logically, the enemies had…
A whole bunch of mooks with standard assault rifles. Firing 7M shots or 10S bursts – but probably not going to hit anything with their 20D fully-auto sprays.
The ‘elite’ bodyguards with improved 8M assault rifles, or 10S shotguns.
Pickup truck gunners, firing the HMGs – 10S base or 13D bursts.
Notably, they have no magical support… they do have the numbers – 50+ mooks, and a good 6-10 ‘elites’, but they’re all light on cyberware and combat boosts, mostly just having a bunch of drugs to boost them for a short while. They do have an AWFUL lot of combat phases between them though…

Countering against that though, is that the team are now kitted out in light milspec with helmets, giving them 9/9 armour. So ALL of the assault rifles will just spang off them – even with full autofire. There might be some knockdown tests to factor in, but no risk at all. The only things that could even scratch them were the shotguns – and they’d still be soaking on 2s against those.
The HMGs would be an issue – especially with a longer burst (assuming the guys could hit of course!) thanks to the higher power – but that’s still not a significant risk. And as they’re just armed with standard ammo, they’re not going to damage the Broadsword either.

The main “risk” here comes in terms of not killing absolutely everyone, and word about their exploits getting out into the wider world – because Daruka is indeed tied in with the various Hordes and Kabul Mafia, who COULD cause an issue for them – mostly from a social side.

Could I have upgunned them? Absolutely. But does it seem reasonable? No, not really… and the team, IMO, *deserve* this feeling. After 9+ years of playing, they absolutely SHOULD outclass some people. They’re high level characters wandering through the into / starting level areas at times, and should feel like they’re the biggest, baddest bunch of hombres on the block. And then that should contrast nicely when a bunch of corporate hit-teams, Azzie Jaguar guards, drakes, or shedim come to piss in their cornflakes, and suddenly drek gets real.

Next week – it’s delivery time in Serbia, and we will *definitely* be rolling for initative…


And as usual, here are the notes from the game session to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. 27/03/2062, Location: 40.02442, 48.95752 , Time 09:00
2. Tads - we've agreed to do this. But do we want a long term relationship with him? Marius - do you object on moral grounds. Tads - it's bad for people. Aswon - but it doesn't cross our lines... and we ship guns and ammo. Tads - it hurts people, addicts them, breaks up families... rest of team not that fussed. Marius - drug users chose to dabble, not like the people who die from a lot of gun deaths. Tads - but elk. Shimazu - we do need a morality check every know and again. But I'm fine. Marius - if we're going to negotiate, we need to do it when we don't have an imminent job. Discuss back at the ranch. Tads - but you and nadia making nookie noises...
3. Discussion about buying the drugs, negotiations with Daruka, Shimazu mentions ripping him off, risk of angering drug lords / larger cartels.
4. Smuggler check for Kai - likely tied to the horde(s). Kai asks about contacts on the way. Tads mentions Mary Pat - but it would be charity. Aswon mentions thinking about making a backup base there, and making a helipad. Talk about visiting Mary Pat. Kai mentions Ludmilla - Aswon, don't like her jobs, always risky/bitey, and I end up mucking out the back. Kai - but that's your job... Tads messages MP - heading your way, do you have gems to sell - unworked? Goes to mailbox.
5. Plan route, staying at least 50km from border. Slip over the borders. Kum Dag the same, Ashgabat the same - talk about stopping
6. MP calls, can't see you yet. Not there yet, oh you are coming. Looking for a hop visit. Do you have stock - yes, can sort you out. Heading there now, before Daruka. Team agree to drop off, assense goods, buy at a fair price.
7. Random roll = 1, dust storm. Marius - clear air turbulence - does an avoid. Aswon - spots mana storm+spirits ahead, detour around. Tads does a check - spirits of the elements? Maybe a dozen of them, but avoided. Aswon advises that Hunter puts that info on shadowland.
8. Lunchtime, arrive at MP. Drop off the 3 at the top, Broadsword land at the bottom. Villagers there, looking hopefully for Marius. MP has a sack of hand-mined gems. Kai etiquette to get a fair price for MP - long term relationship, profit splitting. 5 Units of "refined" precious gems. 7.5k Nuyen. Tads does a little healing and food creation, then they move on.
9. Recap the helmund area, mono culture. Call first, to warn them. Compound goes active, but not ambushed - Marius sweeps, Daruka comes out with half a dozen guards and a flunky with a wheelbarrow. Aswon - expressing distaste show of force, general chuntering. Shimazu psych roll - he's doing this for as much as control/discipline for his own troops and the appearance. Guards do poopy pants. Daruka tries to keep cool.
10. Daruka tries to big up his responses. Straight to business. 30kg - starting price of 180k. Kai goes fishing for local delicacies while Hunter does a test. Kai does some "thinking", negotiations, Kai asks for more, and a deeper discount. Up to 5500 per kg for 50kg = 275,000. Daruka does business swiftly, then passes over contact details.
11. Kai - what can we bring you next time? D - flesh, something exotic. K-not the right storage facilities. Games for the guys + drinks then.
12. Team end negotiations, and leave.
13. Talk about route back, refuelling. Rehash details of the painting and the guy in Batumi, wondering if anyone has gone bad / killed the staff yet.
14. Back to ranch - 3:30 flight, arrive about 16:00.
15. Plot route to Serbia, about 2500km so roughly 5 hours. Agree to keep in the bird. Kai calls - Serbian hello. Do you English? Yes, Kai, visited friend of yours, have product. is this secure. My phone encrypted. Been over the east, have product. 24-48h? Yes, how much product? We have 30. Oh, we were expecting 30, but we can do 50. We can negotiate price. When can we meet? Wednesday, 11pm. Ok - send us co-ordinates, we're flying. Arrange co-ords and details. I see you soon Kai.
16. Aswon - calls Mr Hu re explosives. Then has a thought - Patrik might be on the way?
17. Start thinking about non-lethal supplies.
18. Aswon asking about special arrows for Kai as well, and cool new non-lethals. Give me some time to ask around...

[Lionesque]

Heroin should cause a HUGE payday to offset an equally huge karma hit, IMHO.

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 379 is now published, continuing book 13 of the Smuggler story.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6andi42vbylb...y77n5o&dl=0

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
Well.. there I was promising we’d “roll for initiative”, and the pesky players go and get in the way. Not that we avoided combat entirely, but it certainly was less risky thanks to some good rolls from the players perspective… but fair dinkum – fate smiled on them, so they get the big win. This time. I’m sure Karma will come around for them…

But… let’s rewind.

To start off with I got one of the contacts to come back to them with some gear – none of their requests were outlandish, so no problem on getting them some stuff to go bang bang… and I thought it was time to inject a little bit of flavour into the world with some crazy marketing bullshit. I’m not experienced / into anime or manga, or even culture aligned / close to that – but hopefully I’ve described things for them in a way that will trigger some thoughts and imagination, and remind them that the 6th world is a weird place full of strange things. I’m also looking forward to the look on their faces when the product arrives and they discover that they’ve purchased from the 6th world equivalent of modern day Temu shipping you a cheap ultra-fast solid state disk that is actually a slow as shit SD card hot glued into a massive case weighted down with plasticine…

The next day was spent doing contact upkeep, and a bit of training- nothing fancy, nothing that required particular attention or detail, so we fast-forwarded to the day of the meeting. The journey up as far as Batumi was all quiet, and then I sprung a little surprise on them.

The team are used to ghosting across pretty much all borders now – between the stealth of the aircraft, EDs, ECM, a good vehicle stealth skill, and a F7 spirit with concealment the target number to spot them is pretty high – and with the EDs active, it’s not enough to get just one success, they need to get multiple. That’s fair enough – it’s what the team does, they’re international smugglers, and this is their ‘thing’. And I try to keep the border crossings consistently ‘real’ and appropriate for the nations / corps in play… and the players also don’t as a rule push their luck – staying away from places like Israel, Corporate HQs and the Tir’s…

So, Marius was *extremely* shocked when I told him not only that he’d been locked up by radar, but that they not only had a sensor lock, but also a firing solution – out of the blue with no warning. They went to Brown Alert, changed the light bulb, dove for the deck and entered headless chicken mode – and were equally confused when the other side then backed off and effectively said “as you were”…

They’ve come to the conclusion that it is some weird evil-genius-cartoon billionaire in his plaything (and they’re not that far off right – it’s of course WHICH one that’s important) – and spent a good few minutes wondering about boarding and stealing it (which would have been SUCH a bad idea and might have been the closest we’ve come to a plan likely to cause some character deaths so far). But it amused them somewhat, and was entertaining to listen to them for a bit.
Here’s the imagery I shared with them to give them an idea of what the Yacht looked like: https://www.charterworld.com/news/christoph...century-concept

We moved on, refuelled, and then sauntered across Bulgaria and Serbia without incident.

And that bought us in to the quarry. Unknown to the players, but knoest to us – the local Mafia drug lord “Milica Vulk” has a bit of a rat problem. One of his ‘trusted’ men has decided to sell out his boss, and is working with the local police to engineer a takedown. He’s wired up, and has detailed the drugs transfer to the law, and they’ve rolled out SWAT and FRT to score a major win. Miro Slavorik, the rat, has been dealing with Grigo Heratan the police captain – and has made a deal to hand over Vulk, most of the senior leadership and 50kg of heroin, in exchange for immunity and taking over the operation. Unfortunately for him, the police are planning on reneging on the deal and sweeping up *everyone* involved, and making them all losers. To that end, they have a major rollout of SWAT teams and hardware.

Raiding the Rigger book, Vice and Lone Star fluff material, I statted a SWAT team force capable of doing a major operation like this – giving them armed gunships, APCs, hovercraft, river patrol boats and a company of troops to take out a “major underworld organisation” – including initiated mage support and plenty of other resources. Enough to get the job done – but still trying to work on the basis that they only *know* about the crime cartel, and know *nothing* about the smuggler team. They’ve made an assumption that they’re facing off against someone like the team that got rescued the other week in their off-road truck, or possibly someone in a cargo chopper… as a likely and reasonable threat.

To speed things up, I pre-rolled the stealth on all of the assets, having all the enemy riggers and pilots do their best to stay covert, and making small-unit tactics rolls for the SWAT leadership – with baseline values, I then had them hiding their stuff behind commercial traffic, or with decoy farmers out doing “night muck spreading” to hide their activity. The players come flying in, and we make some checks… and they get *just* high enough to see some things that seem a little unusual, but not anything that definitely tips the hand. And some of the stuff – they don’t even get a hint on – for instance there were 4 LDSD-23 Condor recon drones up nice and high that they never got a whiff of – and had no idea were there at all!

They land, start to do the deal, and again I’m making secret perception / psychology / social engineering rolls, and feeding a few of the players some “bad vibes” messages. They react with caution and suspicion, and heighten their alert status – thinking the whole thing is a setup and getting ready to go very loud. That means they’re not surprised when things kick off, even if they haven’t necessarily expected the actual events.

The Broadsword is still under stealth, and ready to rock – so nearly all of the police assets can’t see it… so this is where I decide to try and be “smart” with the opposition, and they do some clever tictacs to catch the players or at least shit them up a bit. The fire elementals are used to create a giant holo-sight to encompass the players magically, identifying them for all the mundane assets (and it was quite gratifying to hear the disgusted but somewhat admiring complaints of the players, along with threats that they now all clearly have to die for being too smug…) Because the players were ‘ready’ and have some heavy firepower, they managed to take out the main two threats (the choppers had AV missiles, but never got to use them in the first round or two of pseudo-combat) and the other assets never got close enough for effective withering fire – so they’re almost certainly going to get away (though again, they’ve not seen everything – there is a LAV coming in to hunt them down, but he’s just a solo and probably isn’t going to get the job done – but it might shit them up a bit) without issue, but hopefully they feel it was a close thing, and that it could have gone very, VERY wrong for them.

They’re still going to be able to sell their product, and refill their coffers – after helping or at least witnessing the interrogation, and being reminded that they’re dealing with some proper scum of the earth people with vicious streaks a mile wide. But hey, Shadowrun is a dark setting, and full of not-nice things…

Speaking of not-nice things, I had a wonderful comment on Ao3 pointing me at something I wasn’t aware of that’s in the general area.
Here’s a link in case anyone want’s to see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIR8vd-bi8I
Or a wiki article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ro%C8%99ia_Po...ne#Geam%C4%83na
That is a properly horrific story, one that’s disturbingly real, and something that I’m definitely wanting to use. I’m thinking a Winterknight style cell, or possibly a toxic avenger intent on destroying the dam, and something the players will get dragged into and need to fix – or live with the consequences of their actions. It’s probably going to be a hard fix, and one they need to walk away from knowing the situation is still very broken and vulnerable – but beyond their capability to fix. But, while it won’t reward them financially, it will definitely be good for them karmically.

So… a busy week for the team, and with some grey and amoral decisions to come, and some looming eco-terrorism in their near future. Yum yum…. See you all next week!

Oh, and @Lionesque - don't worry, they should be making a *healthy* profit on shifting those 50 kilo bars!

And as usual, here are the notes from the game session to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. 27/03/2062, Location: 40.02442, 48.95752 , Time 16:00
2. Monday 4pm, Due in Serbia for Wednesday 11pm, roughly 5.5 hours transit time
3. Mr Hu sends details of stock available
4. C4 X 20kg, 1500
5. C12 X 5kg, 2000
6. Box of 10 timers and 10 radio detonators, 5000Ny
7. Capacitor heads - high power capacitors with barbed heads that screw onto standard arrow shafts. 1000 Ny for a box of 10 with charging station and international adapter. SI2, Avail 8/2 weeks
8. Concussion mini-grenades, 12M(stun), crate of 96 (8 boxes of 12), 9000 Ny
9. Offers all for 15k delivered. Aswon vaguely disappointed - wants more. But accepts. Arrange to get to Baku, for about 2 weeks. Aswon sends 50% up front.
10. Team do training and contact upkeep, spend time with the family etc.
11. FF to 29/3, about 5pm
12. Uneventful cross TCL, get spotted offshore, locked up. Just as Marius starts to evade, signal drops. Marius remembers seeing it in the bay last time. Sensors report SS Gossamer Wings. Team wonder if they should go say hello "you rang our doorbell?"
13. Tads gets a good look at it in astral to duplicate it later. There is a bunch of F12 wards around it, and there is a F11 great form air-elemental on guard over the top. Suspect the air-elemental clued in the bridge crew to aim the radar.
14. Hunter matrix search on SS GW. Owned by a media corp, used for promo materials, available to hire. Matrix site is generic, and quite old.
15. Fly on, general discussion about it being a front, evil billionaires, the team are going to steal it, hire it, hire it then steal it, etc
16. 5m short of the quarry, Tads does an astral check. Big open wound in astral space, BGC2.
17. Kai sends text to contact. "We are here and waiting". Then Kai calls - hello? It's Kai, any more instructions? No, just land in the bottom of the quarry. Aswon - milspec? Kai - yes. Hunter - gunnery or outside? Kai, come out with us. Aswon ramp for cover, Hunter and Shimazu with Kai. Tads on the ramp. Sensor check for Marius - spots mooks, pit, cargo ships on the danube. Aswon looks at the rim guards - all looking out. 1km from rim to pit. Marius spots "industrial machinery" about 7km west. Marius says keeping engines hot. Aswon suggests using stol, not vtol to conceal capability. Tads does low force illusion of 20mm rifle to disguise staff as a gun.
18. Landing - TN4 for Marius, aced it. Team spot there is no astral overwatch, get details on their equipment. Ask Marius to swing round, ramp to face the group.
19. Kai in a suit, flanked by space marines - they shit their pants. Milica waves guns down, "Kai", Greetings. Approaches, offers hands to shake.
20. Perception checks for all - Tads and Kai spot one person being "dodgy", Tads assenses - with filtering. 9 successes - lots of vibes. Tads alerts
21. Perception and sensors checks. Marius picks up locator beacon -alerts team. Hunter spots beacon flashing in IR. Kai leans in and warns about something being wrong. Hunter starts to move forward - bullrush. Milica - who? Hunter pointing gun. Tads sends spirit to prevent hostile actions.
22. Aswon picks up 2 X choppers inbound. Announces, Kai - you've got a spy! We're out of here. Shimazu shields Kai. Tads heads for seat. Tracer fire over the top of the quarry. "come with us if you want out of here!" Get him! bring him in! Miro runs, Hunter catches and apprehends. Get onboard, spot the yellowjackets strafing the top of the quarry.
23. Hunter throws Miro to the floor, tells the others to cover him, stomps up front.
24. Aswon shows people how to hold/strap in. Marius thrusting off. Tads spots the mage and pack of elementals. Marius exits stage right.
25. Fire elementals bracket the broadsword, guide fire - MMGs open up. Marius RIGHT! 10 round burst from autocannon. 2nd Yellowjacket tries to evade.
26. Marius - not likely sonny jim. 2 successes, dead and sploded, fire. Tads extended area mist. Team can feel a powerball slam off the back of the broadsword wards/shields.
27. Marius spots the FRT / SWAT teams, but they are away.
28. Milica goes for a quicks stab on Miro - team interrupt, hey we live in here... save it.
29. Kai - bugscan the fed please - Shimazu does that. Tads checks for astral pursuit. Shimazu detects a bug/recorder on the guy.

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 380 is now published, continuing book 13 of the Smuggler story.
And… completely arbitrary milestone notification – the story has now just crept past 3 million words. Take that 3rd year English teacher who said I’d never have the patience to stick with anything…

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6andi42vbylb...y77n5o&dl=0

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
We started off with a quick recap of the time, location and situation – just making sure that everyone understood where they were, and what was going on.

Once that was done, it was time for some secret sensor checks for Marius – who unfortunately wasn’t rolling well that night, and didn’t spot the recon drones – or the T-bird. Oh dear. So, it came as an unpleasant surprise when a detected a missile inbound, and went to brown alert. He reacted very quickly, describing how he turned all the defences up to 11 and went evasive… and then I could see the face-palm as I described the launch of the HARM to target the jamming, as he realised he’d been suckered. Particularly ironic in a lot of ways as the player is ex-military and well up on his tech, knows exactly what a HARM is and realised as soon as it happened that he’d been suckered – and had nobody to blame but himself.

Still, while the missile would have been nasty if it had hit, he’s got plenty of karma and control pool, and I was reasonably happy that it wouldn’t be fatal for the bird or lead to a TPK – so I enjoyed the squeaky bum moment while the rest of the team waited to find out if was going to be a “very exciting” night…

Tads was still trying to decide what to do about the fire-elementals. She was happy she could take them out one by one, but knew that banishing all 5 would take some time, and keep her busy – so she wasn’t sure what to do. I was happy to let her hang in limbo for a while and think it through, and moved back to the missiles.

Marius did manage to evade, and made it across the border, just as Tads threw up a second ring of fire as illusions – and that seemed like a good place to have the T-bird break off the pursuit, giving the players a bit of breathing room and a chance to deal with the diplomatic issues.

Moving into the cargo bay, Kai was ‘engaged’ enough that I went with just natural roleplaying and negotiations, not tests, and let him dictate the pace. Given his skill levels, I don’t think it would have played out any differently anyway, and the team had enough intimidation, influence and other mojo to push it however they wanted – so it really didn’t make any odds to me. And of course, the outcome for the traitor is irrelevant as far as the plot goes (at least for what I have planned… but he’s in the spreadsheet now, so he could come back in the future), I don’t particularly have plans for Vulk and the Serbian mafia – and neither do the players AFAIK… so how they ended up treating him was up to them.

The main thing I wanted to get over was “Pirkov”, the mysterious new individual that was going to be working with Slavorik – and that I want the players to investigate. They didn’t seem too keen on this so far, so we’ll have to see how things go, but I’ll probably drop another little hint or two in the coming weeks to see if I can get them to bite…

For now though, I’m pooped, and my brain is not wording well… so time to admit defeat on this week and move on to something else. Back to the ranch for the team tomorrow, and deciding what job to do next – or which plot thread to dangle in front of them…

And as usual, here are the notes from the game session to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. Wednesday 29/03/2062, Location: 44.7441, 21.23841 , Time 23:10
2. Team are in the Broadsword, heading east, with Milica Vulk, ten bodyguards / elites in the back, and the captured Miro Slavorik
3. Still under observation from high level LDSD-23 drones for the moment. Harpy Scout LAV in pursuit
4. Marius perception - does not spot the Harpy closing, Tads checks astrally - spots the 5 X F5 doing a ring around them. Starts banishing. Tads bemoans leaving spell sig behind on the mist spell. Harpy does not get lock, blind-fires missile.
5. Missile alert - Marius shouts a warning, turns up EDs and ECM to max. Heads NE towards the Romanian border and the Carpathians. Harpy then fires AARMs.
6. Marius detects additional missiles coming in - homing on the Broadsword rather than in the general direction. MArius tactics check - suckered with a HARM. Marius goes dark and dives. Marius successfully evades both missiles. Tads magical common sense - fake fire trail. 4 successes on F6
7. Two more missiles, one on each course, neither get lock. Tads plans another illusion. Mage appears to grab his elementals, Tads throws an agony at him but he reflects - but it bounces off her shields. Then he exits west with the elementals. Team now crossing Romania, being evasive - still no idea about the Harpy.
8. They ask Vulk about high-tech missiles - well, it's lone star... big corp Init. Shimazu - police procedures, they're elites.
9. Aswon - suggest we drop these guys off and let them work their way back. Kai - should we mind probe? Tads - sting probably not for us. Hunter - agreed, wrong force mix.
10. Kai-talk to Vulk. Looks at men, we can carry the drugs. Can you get inside his head, find out what he's done. Negotiations - Kai wants to do business first. Vulk wants to know how deep the shit is. Kai not keen - we got you out of there, you'd be dead/captured otherwise. Shimazu psychology - enough successes, he's wise and swallowing his pride. Shimazu whispers to Kai to give him an out / save face. Kai does... hands over a credstick with 500k. Team very quickly think about money - but get the impression he's not after change.
11. Kai - where do you want dropping off, and how secure are your comms. Can you get us to Moldovita. About 10km away, just off the main road back to the Danube. Kai asks Shimazu to probe the group to detect magic. None magic, faith in their boss - it's all gone wrong, but he seems to be salvaging things. Kai goes to talk to Tads, don't want to mind probe, can we do some trickery? ML is voluntary, MP is not... Kai - want to offer him a deal, flee, or we kill everyone you've ever known...
12. Kai's plan - tell him not to resist, mind link, get the details, but then let him go...
13. Kai goes back to collect him, gives flim-flam reasons why it needs to be quiet and private, lodge. That's accepted, take Slavorik into the passenger bay. Kai, Slavorik and Tads are in the passenger bay now - we're going to read your thoughts, don't resist or you die. MS - you're going to let me live, if I comply? Kai - yes, and we'll hide you and make it look like you died..
14. Mindlink and interrogation, get all the details of the deal and dealings. Kai asks Tads to alter memory to get rid of things like the snitch details. Tads does illusion, take back to confess, Hunter to throw out the back. Tads throws out 12 successes. Hunter - throws out "he promised, I didn't", tells the rest of the guys "guns away, now".
15. Kai tells Vulk all the details about the codes, CI, Grigor - but Kai says no retribution for Slavorik's family - better to go after combatants not innocents. Better image for you.
16. Tads actually mindprobes the guy. Influence to live a better life.
17. Team drop off the Mafia in Moldovita with a burner phone, leave card with contact details. Give us a call when you're back safe... firm handshake,
18. Team now discussing where to drop off Slavorik, southern end of serbia as he speaks serbian and english. Kai/Aswon/Shimazu spot Tads has a facial twitch - Shimazu asks her to drop shielding, assenses, talks her through her PTSD.
19. Drop off Miro ok. Back to ranch for about 5am thursday morning. Team wondering just why Kai gave him 2k when he's evil

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 381 is now published, continuing book 13 of the Smuggler story.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6andi42vbylb...y77n5o&dl=0

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
Hello folks. Bigger than average writeup this week – but then they’ll be nothing for a few weeks while Tads and I are off on our annual holiday to the Netherlands to go meet with our World of Warcraft guildies and play crazy games (including a bit of Shadowrun, but mostly board games), have BBQs and get drunk. Not necessarily in that order…

This week we had an odd circumstance, but one that makes for something interesting to discuss from a behind the scenes perspective – at least from my perspective. So – what happened? Well, at the start of the session, there was a discussion about Miro again – with Aswon expressing some concern about if he’d keep his head down and not cause trouble, partly for the sake of the mafia, but mostly for if that might spill over onto the team. Tads went off astrally with some spirits to find him and try to check in, and influence him as necessary. There was some searching to do, and that took longer than she expected – which also made her a little uncomfortable I think, as she’s not used to that.

But, I then got a whisper sent to me on Discord when she did find him. Short, sharp and to the point it was “kill him”. I found that *really* interesting, as Tads/Ali is normally the one who will shy away from violence, and Ali is the person most likely to be voted as a carebear at the table. She’s played pacifist characters before, and done well with them. She’s just not a confrontational person, and doesn’t like playing your typical street sam or other combat focussed characters. So I know I’ve really impressed upon her how irredeemably evil a character is that they’ve met when she’s prepared to just off them.

The question was then – how to handle it. She was the only one there, and only she knows what she did. So a quick response back, and then turn to give her a nod, and publicly say “ok, you get your spirit to deliver the message”. Then she returned, and told the other players that she delivered the message, and didn’t think it would be an issue any more. Which they accepted, and then moved on with the session…

This is something that comes up sometimes in games, and particularly I’ve found in live-action RP games, where you need to be really careful with the out-of-character knowledge that gets shared around. I’m lucky I think with my SR group in that I trust all of the players, both to play well, and to be honest with their gaming – they understand the unspoken contract of the game table, and we generally all get along really well. On one side then, I have no issue with them knowing, as I don’t think any of them would abuse that knowledge they have as players, to influence what they shouldn’t know as characters.

On the other hand though – that knowledge once known, can’t be ‘unknown’. Any decision they make from there will always be tainted or coloured by what they know, and it’s really hard to work out what the character should or would be thinking, when you now have additional knowledge. And, in particular, I think it then robs you of your chance to make those ‘leaps of intuition’ that you sometimes have at the game table when you put a mental jigsaw together and get the right answer, and feel a sense of satisfaction from that. If you knew the answer already but only out of the game, then deciding when your character would put those clues together to reach the correct conclusion is always hard – and in my experience unsatisfying.

So this week, as I wrote the narrative, I added in a new tag. Normally as I’m writing, when I get to the end of a session, I put in an “xxx” marker, and then send it over to Ali for SPAGging. She opens the document, checks the spelling, punctuation and grammar, and occasionally will also note down if I’ve mis-attributed an idea or statement to the wrong character or made some other oopsie – working down the document until she reaches the xxx marker. As she tends to be up at 5am, she does that before she heads to work, and gets it back to me, and I can then continue writing from that point. A typical weekly writeup goes back and forth three times – this works better for her to be able to do the story in smaller chunks rather than having one big document land, and also means that I don’t go too far down the wrong path if I’ve made a major error in the action (which is thankfully very rare).

But this time, there was a “zzz” tag in as well, and then a section covering her killing the NPC. And another zzz tag, leading to a much shorter single paragraph that pretty much said “and then I scared him into being good.” The first one made it into the narrative, and is the ‘true’ state of affairs. The second is what got sent out to the players and is what Tads ‘said’ was the true state of affairs. From a certain point of view.

And just like Ben Kenobi, she was being truthful, from that certain point of view. She phrased it very precisely, and didn’t tell any lies. She just wasn’t explicitly and wholly forthcoming with information. Technically correct… which as we all know is the best kind of correct.

But now, the rest of the players have a very slightly different optic on events – which unless something disturbs their narrative, they’ll keep, and that will hopefully let them react completely naturally to whatever happens. I don’t think it is likely to come up, and I’m not going to try and contrive a situation to make it happen (at least not based on current events). But that doesn’t mean it never will… maybe if Tads does slip over further towards the dark side, then the groups magical avatar might drop some hints, and see if anyone wants to pull on the end of that piece of string.

With that done, it was time for the next bit of plot to land – with a weird abduction. I’m pretty sure that Ali knows exactly what is going on, mostly because she knows how warped I can be and has some background information that the others don’t… but she’s not 100% certain.

On the face of it, it’s a simple willing extraction, from Dubai to Switzerland. But, when it appears that the willing extractee is to be restrained in fairly horrible confinement for the journey, that raised all kinds of alarm bells. They trust Germaine – at least to a certain level – and they’ve already stated their job limits to her, so her assertion that it was a kosher mission confused them. They then started to wonder about things like werewolves and split personalities, and that sent them off on some fairly wild discussions, which were interesting to hear and think about.

But, by then they’ve committed to the job and were making preparations, doing research and some astral scouting. Our next game is 31st March I think, so the next writeup will be out around 5th April, so we’ll probably be at least at the point of starting the snatch operation then – and we’ll get to see how they go.

Until then, I’m going to enjoy a few beers, some time in the hot tub (and for those of you that know me, you can have that image rent free in your head. Mind bleach will struggle with that one), play some games and run my special forces Shadowrun game and let them experience the joys of shedim and toxic spirits in Tehran.

See you in a few weeks!

And as usual, here are the notes from the game session to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. Thursday 30/03/2062, Location: 44.7441, 21.23841 , Time 06:45
2. Aswon to Tads - are we done with that guy. Should we send a spirit to deliver a message "be good"? Don't need word getting back to the org crime that he's alive. Never sees you, but keeps the pressure on him? T - has upsides and downsides. Still has the potential to bump into people.. A- he could try to get cocky, get back in touch with the copper.T - to think about. But also, we have places here underground to ward - we should think about that.
3. Kai has a dodgy tummy - and goes for a massive shit.
4. Tads - goes over, in fast astral, gets spirits to search, takes 2 hours to find him.
5. Shimazu, Hunter sleeping, Marius back to his room with Nadia.
6. Germaine, tried to call Kai, but busy. Off to Japan soon for a "spa visit".
7. It is a tight timescale, and a bit strange. Explains, Aswon asks about non-lethal availability. Any weird magical stuff - no, just mage support. Aswon goes to wake up the others... hunter grumbles (frak-off), shimnzu - sounds like a lowball offer, I'm back to bed. Aswon tries to message Nadia. It buzzes, Nadia misses, knocks off the table, makes more noise, wakes up Marius Junior. Sends Kai a message to come to lodge. "Ok, start the engines! It's germaine, where are we going..." Aswon explains to Kai, he's in favour. A warns that S not happy. K - but it's not a democarcy. General banter. Tads back to body at 7:30 ish. "He won't be making contact with anyone - I was quite firm". Aswon offers tea and cookies, and oh - BTW, job from Germaine.
8. K calls Germaine, checks, time. what about bribing the bodyguards - gets some exposed location. Will they do dna/magic tracking - oh yes. But that's why you're warded, right. Can get you troll taser nets and gas grenades. Ask for expendable spell foci. Will check the local resources (Aslik?)
9. Aswon check on islam - description of area, more relaxed, ibn eisa campaigning for a new jihad.
10. Aswon also - this sounds weird. She knows we don't do unwilling. Is he a werewolf or something? This is odd... Kai - yeah, maybe it's some kind of split personality thing, fine line. But does sound odd. Kai - can we work out what strength creature that could restrain? Probably average human, not enhanced.
11. Team start looking at locations - know nothing about the destination. Engineering from hunter - land is firm and reliable. Aswon looking at size of island, asks about mist spell radius. Land, pacify, grab, leave.SUT tests. Ultrasound and limited cyber
12. Marius - is there a name, can we search? No, just the time/date/willing. Tads suggest warding the box to help keep stuff contained.
13. Magic background checks - hermetic vs shamanic details.
14. Tads - it's an inspection - can we search on the area for what's going on? Find out who might be there. Detail Hunter to check. Plans around levitating the target up away from the guards, deploying gas/stun on the guards. Atlernate plan, Shimazu in milspec on a rope, snatch and grab, with magic cover. Possibly even a bungee cord with expert flying and maths for the stretch. Shimazu less impressed with this plan...
15. Continued spitballing about plans, ammo.
16. Hunter - so we need supplies. Let's ask Nadia... Marius - what?? She's the logistics expert... smirk. Can get the box from Shirvan and supplies.
17. Germaine tells the team, Aslik has up to F7 expendable combat fetish. Aslik has 26 units of warding materials.
18. Aswon suggests getting some "pure" material for Tads to use as an emotion dump / cleansing foci.
19. Check the sound file - get some details.
20. During shopping spot Yak enforcers around, Shimazu makes eye contact, they spot him - bow respectfully. Shimazu nods back. Makes enquiries - they're making services available. Moving into prostitution, drugs and chips.
21. Team look at map and logistics and fuel stops. Marius wants to minimise Iran overflight - go via gulf states.
22. Tads astral recon - somg BGC, labour camp. Hunter doing matrix search on the company. 5 successes.