Mission Spoilers, For sharing your "war stories" Options

[bitrunner]

As the topic says, here is where you can share your "war stories"...

I've seen a couple of people talk about their horror stories about runs gone bad or the stupid things that they or other characters/players have done.

Rather than clog up other threads with this, you can put them here. I know that a lot of you want to talk and share your experiences, and frankly, I would like to encourage that. Of course, those that haven't played the adventure yet shouldn't be looking at the spoilers - if they do so, they're only hurting themselves. But hey, there's only so much I can do. I think SR players as a whole though are a more "mature" gaming crowd, and can control their impulses.
I only ask two things...

1. Use the spoiler tags. if you don't know how, you put [ spoiler ] as shown with the square brackets at the beginning of your discussion, and [ /spoiler ] at the end of your discussion that you wish to keep hidden. (remove the extra spaces inside the brackets)

2. Put the name or mission code somewhere in the title or immediate beginning of your posting clearly so that people can identify which messages are about which mission. Rather than open a separate thread for each mission, I'd like to keep them all here.

Also, I've started "The Bit Bucket" for you to post in-character about what you find out about missions. You can also ask questions!!! Consider it to work just like Shadowland... 8)

Have Fun!

[Backgammon]

A fork in fate's path:

[ Spoiler ]

Leaving a 400k cyberdeck behind... so much sadness, so much.

[Whizbang]

A Dark and Stormy Night

[ Spoiler ]

In playing A Dark and Stormy Night at Dragon*Con, we learned that dark, torrential downpour, and only having met your fellow runners over the phone is a recipe for friendly fire. I was smart...cast invisibility, and sat out the initial conflict. Then I thought to use Trid Phantasm to put up a sign saying "(Fixer's name I forgot)'s group meet here".

The GM let it be seen even through the abyssmal conditions, and two of the players didn't get the clue then. They just kept on blasting until eventually they wandered inside and ran into the defenders. They came back out to the bus they had stolen to get to the place (nice tour bus...no clue what it was doing in the Barrens), where the rest of us had gathered and IDed ourselves. I had already accumulated some heavy stun healing up one of the other players they had shot, so they called a cab (bus was temporarily disabled), and headed off to their street doc.

We got the bus going again, and drove around a bit while we recovered, and plotted what next. We stopped to pick up the idiots, and headed back to the site just to see Ares swarming on the place. The idiots decided to go investigate further, getting blasted up again. They then headed off to have hostile words with the fixer...attempting to kill an illusion, and getting killed themselves.

We got back with our fixer, trying to see what could be salvaged from the run. Not much, but the fixer did buy our bus for more than we would have made on the run. Compensation was nice, but would have prefered to complete the run.

[bitrunner]

Backgammon's post: A Fork in Fate's Path

[ Spoiler ]

(checking notes...) ??? 400K cyberdeck?? where???? i'll have to go back and find where that was...or did the GM just add that?? if it is in there, i really need to add that to the Mission Log...

Whizbang: Dark & Stormy Night

[ Spoiler ]

hmmm, well, for the most part, unless you say otherwise, you should realize that most phones are going to have at least the small picture option. after accepting the mission, it would be a good idea to say "ok, let's rendezvous here, and head out to the barrens from there...here's what i look like so you'll know me at the meeting spot..."

i can't believe you guys went straight out to the Barrens and the site without meeting up first and getting a plan of action!

btw, good job guys on following the instructions...thanks...

[Backgammon]

answering bit (fork in fate's path):

[ Spoiler ]

Well, maybe not... All I know is we got sloppy and didn't check the office near the door of the warehouse. Later, our decker smacked his head and told us we should have checked, there was a decker in there and we could of had his cyberdeck. He said it was worth 400k, but maybe he was wrong. I guess my GM, Dark Father, could better answer what exactly happened or rather could have happened.

[linei]

[Whizbang]

Dark and Stormy Night

[ Spoiler ]

Even with ID...the weather and nighttime conditions made positive ID on site pretty much nil, even for those with cyber. I was lucky the GM let that 'meet here' sign be visible through the storm. I agree we should have picked somewhere to meet up somewhere inside.

[Dark father]

A Fork in fate's path (answer to backgammon)

[ Spoiler ]

Dee, our decker assumed that the decker had a better deck than his. After seeing the quality of the goods the team had, he was sure the decker too got good tech. However, he assumed he had a Renraku Kraftwerk or better. That's why he supposed the decker had a 400000 deck in the office where he was doing his decking.

This scenario didn't go in the details like every other scenarios. That's why a GM had to assume and improvise things a lot. Like the fact that the decker was decking in the office.

[Dark father]

A Fork in Fate's Path

Here's a cool conclusion for one of my session I ran for it. My players aren't dumpshockers, so I will recite the story for them

[ Spoiler ]

Desiring to avenge themselves, the runners waited until most of the security quitted, and only Kirkpatrick and his technicians remained to work on the show. They enterred into the facility and managed to force Kirkpatrick and his team to completely erase all the data. However, one of the technician decided to punish them severly for what they had done. While everyone was busy erasing their data, he activated the drones and sent them a command to kill the runners as soon as they exit the building. After everything was done, the runners forced everyone to get out. And the technician who activated the drone knew what would happen... As soon as the door opened, the drones filled the corridor with a storm of bullets. All the technicians and Kirkpatrick were killed, but miraculously the runners stayed alive and managed to escape unharmed. How? Grizzly Bob, the team shaman was sustaining a Improved Invisibility all that time on the other runners. That was enough to fool the drones sensor systems!

[linei]

A Dark And Stormy Night

[ Spoiler ]

After a quick start the characters took a huge amount of time to just circle the building, find all guards, get them alive and question them.
This took that long, that they made it just down to the first level of the facility before time was running out and the containment team arrived. Making their way out of the facility was quite a close call.
Oh, did I mention that the stun ball spell in the elevator left the troll unconscious ? The team had to carry him around for the rest of the adventure. Fun times.

[linei]

FORCEd RECON

[ Spoiler ]

One of the characters (first-time Missions player) was a graduate student of cybertechnology at Seattle University. So the "Field Trip" was used easily.
One other character called a favour from his dad (owning a rental plane company) for a bird's eye image of the facility.
The best thing came at the end: The Shaman positioned himself opposite the gate, using Improved Invisibility to stay undetected. When she saw a civilian (non-uniformed) leave the gate in a private car, she cast the Influence-spell on him, making him stop his car a quarter of a mile down the road. Subsequent casting of the Influence-spell made him talk at length about his research in the facility to a bush (where a voicerecorder had been hidden). The final Influence-spell made him leave his security card at the bush before he left. Of course, the card would be useless a day later, but at least the research report was greatly appreciated.

[linei]

Demolition Run

[ Spoiler ]

The PC drove up the facility, took a look, than turned and drove away to start planning. About a mile from the facility a DocWagon truck came down the road driving up to the facility (the next shift arriving).
The PC decided that this was just a delivery truck, picking up some medkits or something like that. So they stopped and waited for the truck to return. They planned to ambush the truck, subdue the driver, take his entry card for the facility and infiltrate it using the card.
Well, not so luckily for the PC, the leaving shift was in the truck, giving them quite a firefight.
When the smoke settled, the whole leaving shift was dead, most PC severely injured and Lone Star on their way.
So the PC drove away to hide somewhere in the sprawl.
The team decker hacked his way into the matrix node of the facility. As time was running out and the team was severely wounded, I let them use the rocket launchers to destroy the facility through the matrix in order to salvage the run as good as possible.

[dokuja]

A Dark & Stormy Night - played at GenCon during midnight madness, which added to the insane atmosphere

[ Spoiler ]

We had 2 covert ops in the group so we made short work of scouting the scene. Bypassing the security system in the elevator shaft was a pain though.

What we found and fought inside freaked us out more than anything. One of the best lines in the game, IMO, came from me, a newbie to the game:
"Errr... guys, do ghouls register under thermo imaging?"

Of course, the group sends in the filmsy elf (me) into the scene of carnage. Matt the GM toyed with me and said my chemsuit ripped on the way in. Naturally I freaked out and wanted out. The group wanted me to stay for detox. There's no way I was staying, especially with signs of a T-bird flying in. So I bolted for the exit. The funny thing is, it just so happens that the Cha 8 Elf comes face-to-face with the spirit. My character squished it in 2 turns.

The fun did not end there though. Halfway to our getaway car with the injured man from the lab, the orc demolition specialist asks: "Did we scan him astrally?"
"Hmm... no"
::scans::
::everyone freaks out and start pumping lead into the guy::
::scans::
"Okay, it's dead"
::runs::

We had a blast and had our dosage of fear & paranoia.

[dokuja]

FORCED ReCON

[ Spoiler ]

Once again the orc demolition specialist (played by Mike) made the run that much easier. He got the entire team a job as the cleaning crew for the facility through an equal opportunity agency (yes, even a job for the "disadvantaged" elf).

With my covert ops' eye camera and fingerprint scanner, we had the entire place mapped out and all the personnel IDed.

The best line came from the GM though.
"Are you guys actually going to do a good job cleaning the place?"
The entire team responds enthusiastically "Yeah!"
The GM looks in disbelieve "Shadowrunners actually doing hard, honest work?"

We did such a good job cleaning the place that we have a special contact with the cleaning agency. We can get a job there anytime if we want to switch from shadow running to janitorial work.

[dokuja]

Demolition Run

[ Spoiler ]

With no magical support in the group, we had to rely on decking and legwork for recon. Of course the no-fly zone made it that much more difficult. We spent a lot of time trying to gather info on the place but didn't get much so we had to go in blind and play by ear. With so much uncertainity, there were many surprises on both sides.

The first shocker came when we arrived at the loading dock and discovered it was locked from the inside with no outside controls. That's when the orc demolition specialist pulled a fast one on Bitrunner the GM and pulled out his private stash of C4s.
Bitrunner gasped in shock: "You LIED to Mr Johnson?!?"
(previously we told our Johnson we didn't have any explosives so he supplied us with crapload of C4s)
The entire table cracked up.

Once we got through the loading area we saw the building-inside-a-building and finally found out why we got two separate floorplans. This is when the guard inside the guardhouse pulled out an assault rifle on me. I shocked everyone when my QCK 11 elf ran across the field to the side of the guardhouse (away from the firing end of the rifle), turned around, stuck my pistol through the firing slit, and fired several gel rounds into the guard, all in one combat turn.

Time was running out so it didn't occur to us to use the missile launchers (though we thought about lifting several of the missiles). But Mr Johnson gave us enough C4s to level the place so we got the job done.

[RedmondLarry]

I've run these many times. So the observations are from different groups of players.
Mission Briefing

[ Spoiler ]

A group of 15 year old players who open up with their big guns on the Fixer who is late to the meeting, just minutes into their job. To cover their escape one of them uses a LAW rocket on the convention center for a 'diversion'.

4 characters ALL use their skill on THE drone, and ALL use a Karma Pool for rerolling failures, and NONE has a success. 40 dice in all.

The punk (former ganger) character who rolls a great perception test on a man coming from the convention center, and recognizes a SMG under his jacket. Punk says, "Hey mister, I have a Preditor-2" and pulls out his Pistol, "see, it's cool". Man pulls out his SMG (pointing skyward) "Yup, I have an H and K 227, it's cool too." Punk: "I also have a knife" drawing one from a boot. Man: "I also have a badge" (showing it), "do you have a permit?"

Two motorcycles drive into the park. Character: "Allright! Finally! Something we can shoot."

Troll who throws puppy onto the I-5 Interstate.

Demolition Run

[ Spoiler ]

Two characters kill themselves after uncoordinated attacks fail to dent an organized defense.

The character with Demolitions 2 who proudly tells the Team that he'll provide the demolitions skill, so they don't need to hire anyone else. His third test is a critical failure, so he uses his only Kama pool to turn it into a simple failure. He has to do the remaining checks with two dice and no remaining pool.

A Fork in Fate's Path

[ Spoiler ]

The 12 players who divided up between two tables playing different paths, always thinking that they'd get to go up against the other table before the adventure was over.

The team that assaulted the shelter in order to get clues. And they stole the cookies from the oven.

The team with no vehicles.

[RedmondLarry]

Demolition Run

[ Spoiler ]

The character with a backpack full of explosives who, after many failed attempts, finally decides that none of the equipment on his character sheet will get him through the locked door and into the facility.

[Whizbang]

Demolition Run

[ Spoiler ]

Our Demolition skill was rather lacking. I'm still not sure the newbie knew what he was doing with it...but at least it went boom in the end. Anyways, our decker got the floor plans and File H (still wondering what that is), and so we ploted. We assumed the warded room was the control room and planned accordingly. To get in, the Levithan shaman toxic waved our way in (I've got to get that spell...) We were running out of time by then, so the GM went theatric. I was rather satisfied with making the outhouse go boom with a fireball, and only coming out with moderate damage. We with our limited knowledge just stuck C4 everywhere, timers at different times, and ran for our lives, just barely getting out of dodge in time.

[Backgammon]

[Deacon]

Mission Briefing

[ Spoiler ]

Surprisingly my team ran this fairly professionally, though the character who wanted to take Snoop home, not to butcher him for parts but because he liked beagles and wanted a pet, that was amusing.

FORCEd RECON

[ Spoiler ]

None of the team wanted to even go anywhere near the facility. Only the team shaman took an astral flyby -- learning a lot. But they came up with an ingenious plan -- they discovered one of the on-site contractors, tailed him to a stuffer shack, used Control Thoughts on him to make him give them the detailed plans for the facility, and then made him forget all about it (using Alter Memory).

Demolition Run

[ Spoiler ]

This isn't a spoiler about the run but comments from the author -- What were you people -doing-?!? If the team has no Demolition skills then the fixer -- Saint James -- goes in afterwards with the demo packs to blow the place up. And the missiles are not controllable from the Matrix, it even says so in the text of the adventure -- it doesn't make sense for someone to be able to deck in from so far away and use the missiles to destroy DocWagon's own facility. If this were possible the system would have been far more heavily guarded. :spin:
PLEASE NOTE: All comments are meant in fun, please do not be offended.

Dark & Stormy Night

[ Spoiler ]

With the entire team having either low-light or thermographic vision, the only problem was dealing with the rain -- which went away as soon as they got into the building. As the entire team had run before in the last three adventures, there was no friendly fire to deal with. The only problem was that they got into the elevator and immediately went to the fourth floor -- there went half the adventure! The shaman was terrified of the background count and the Force 15 Wards and never thought to assense 'John', the carpenter -- so never discovered his true nature. The Invae have another servant loose upon the city...

[RedmondLarry]

[linei]

[bitrunner]

Linei - Agreed.... :)

[linei]

A Fork in Fate's Path

[ Spoiler ]

The characters searched Downtown for Halloweeners. For hours. When they finally found three of them, they send their most gang-like looking member and inquired for Burpie. After quite some talking (and exchange of money) they got the adress for Eddie's Coffee Shop.
There the same character again had to convince Eddie that they were there for the good of Burpie. Funnily, the team expected the Ravenwing-girl to be a close friend of Burpie. So the gang-like character talked to Eddie about 'a friend of Burpie', they needed to find and help.
The assault on the warehouse went not so good. The troll just went in through the front door, made his way to the restroom (incidently the one were the girl was held), broke right through that door, took the girl and ... well, tried to break through the outer wall of the warehouse. While trying to get through he was shot and spend the rest of the scene unconscious.
The rest of the characters went in more cautiously. But even so ... had I played out 'The Elimators' as written (former SpecOps, ...), they would easily have wiped the floor with the characters.
Finally, they made it out alive, with the girl.

[Dr. Black]

Seems to me the biggest problem facing players (typically newbs) is the concept of legwork and stealth.