Running with murderous felons, and toddler-sized lumps of explosives Options

[tschofie]

Alright. The last couple runs have been getting just a little, ah, messy. We're all now felons in several nations, and have murdured at least a couple dozen assorted security persons in the middle of some fairly large cities, sometimes on national television. Our escape vehicle on each occaison was large and noticable. Certain lapses in judgement have occurred regarding: the number of kilos of c12 appropriate to the situation ("Well, uh, four I guess",) and the best location in which to detonate a distraction ("Ok, ambulances arrive at the scene to care for the wounded and dying campus guards you've left littered across the bloody lawn." "Great! I push the button!".)

We survive via grace of the GM, a good mage, and an inexplicably benign lady luck.

So what are good ways to tone down the senseless violence once things go to hellina handbasket? What are your favorite non-lethal weapons, and, more importantly, how do you get other players to willingly use them? What can I do OoC to tone things down a bit? (The rampant bloodshed and destruction isn't yet personally offensive, mostly, but it really makes runs difficult. Sigh.)

Thanks muchly,
TS


______

When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.
--Sir Winston Churchill

[Westiex]

What I'd do is to start a new game and start having hte Johnson lay out specifics as to what weapons they can and can't use, how noticable that they're allowed to be.

Failing that, make it easier for the cops to track them (The stats for Gridguide cameras are in R3R, close to the front), start having Lonestar use recon drones ... which is hardly railroading if you start giving the players hints about what the 'Star are using. Prehaps have one of them read an article about what the local cops are starting to use to give them a heads up

Thats assuming your the GM, though.

[Kaosaur]

[Critias]

I think it's a little late for changing to non-lethal and hoping it means the GM's gonna let you live. You guys've made a few decisions, and now it's time to deal with them -- either by scrapping the campaign and starting over (starting over smarter), by just doing what you're doing (and the GM light-heartedly deciding to let things slide, turning it into an almost-slapstick action flick sort of villian game), or by playing things out and letting the dice fall where they may (with your GM taking the group apart, one at a time or all at once, with HRT and SWAT teams, etc).

I don't think you're at a point where you can turn over a new leaf and start packing a taser and a stun grenade instead of an LMG and C12, and think it'll be reason enough for the cops not to gnaw your faces off.

[Snoof]

You could always "vanish" for a few years. Dump your hideouts, fake IDs, contacts and favourite weapons. Get yerself some plastic surgery, maybe some gene therapy, change your prints. Once you've been out of the game long enough (maybe until, say, 2070), try starting a new career. On a different continent. Under totally different names. With a fresh Johnson.

Snoof

[Euchrid]

One of my players uses the Sleep spell on damn near everyone they fight. Nice little area effect spell which allows them to interrogate everyone (making my job harder, of course) and doesn't kill anyone.

[amadeus]

well, Snoof, has a great idea, change your idents...

other then that, I like the dart/supersquirt guns with narcojet loaded into them. It's kinda hard to resist 6D, no armor or anything, just body, the CC has some nice chemical deleviry (can't spell) systems for you to use, and then you just pick your faviorate drug. If you have lots of money (and I mean lots) use Laes', that stuff is nasty...

amadeus

[ElFenrir]

I'm also a fan of the narcoject/dart guns. It can get a little costly, but some of the other stun compunds they have are even nastier than Narcoject, albiet harder to get. One of em did about 10D Stun damage. Laes also would be a good follow up to prevent anyone remembering. And gel rounds, concussion grenades, tazers...

Of course, the old tried and true DMSO-Hyper combo is good...albiet that one isn't very quiet, as the person on the Hyper tends to be a little...out there afterward.

For up close, stun batons, clubs, and just plain unarmed combat all do Stun damage.


As for your current situation...getting the services of a very good decker and street doc for some(ok, a lot) info and at least some appearance changes sounds like the best bet as mentioned...and dissapearing for awhile. perferably to another country. For about a year. If you really wanna try to salvage this game.

I mean a few slip ups and dead guards happens. Even one botched run doesn't mean you have to dissapear(unless you managed to let loose an Aztechnology blood spirit and turn it free that is). But when a country knows who you are...ouch.

[Little Bill]

I'm in the campaign TS's talking about.
The campaign is due to wrap in a couple more sessions anyway.

There are a number of causes of the problem:
First of all, a good number of the players are new to Shadowrun and aren't used to playing a game where everyone has to be at least somewhat sneaky and where violence isn't always the best choice. They're probably used to using tactics that have worked for them in other games without repercussions there.
Secondly, we started out at a lower power level than most Shadowrun groups, which has made it tougher to have clean runs (how many times has the GM asked for a skill and none of us have had it, or at most only a couple levels?).
Thirdly, our GM likes having a little action in the game, and often he will basically throw obstacles in our way until one of us blows a skill roll and we have to have a little fight or two. There's nothing wrong with that except that it's encouraging the new players to just start the fight to begin with, since they know it's going to happen sooner or later.
Fourth, we didn't face any real consequences for earlier missions where we made too much noise, which again encourages the players to keep doing what has worked in the past.

The remedy: End the campaign.

My own character (Red Cloud) has decided that enough was enough and is ready to call it quits and retire from Shadowrunning (perhaps permanently) as soon as we can resolve this last run. Whether he decides to extract a little vengence from the PCs who killed a lot of his fellow Souix in the last session or two remains to be seen.

[Smiley]

Try some plastic surgery and a few months of cooling-off time. After the heat dies down a little, get some fake SINs and try 'running again, this time with a little more finesse.

[Nikoli]

Or, tehy could pull a few runs to fake their death in what should be the enevitable blaze of lead from the 'star for the destruction they've casused.
They lay low for a while, and do the typical reconstruction job on their ID's and resurface.

[Smiley]

Yeah, faking your deaths is a pretty good idea.

[hyzmarca]

Buy a knowsoft link and as many language chips as you can find. Then, move to Africa.
It works just as well in the opopsite order, sometimes better)

(Note: If you've blown up anothing in Africa pick another continent. If all else fails, Antartica is a great place to hide out.)

[Kagetenshi]

I'd advise sticking to your guns and not going the non-lethal route. I'd also advise more discretion, though; it's just fine to blow up the ambulances as they arrive to tend to the wounded, you just need to make sure that no one can identify or track you. Likewise, if you've got a shot at a Lone Star officer and can reasonably guarantee that you can't be identified, take that shot. One less to deal with later.

In your specific case, I think you're going to want to be down one escape vehicle very quickly, though. Consider running the border into Salish; if all else fails, Denver is a great place to lose people (before Ghostwalker returns at any rate).

~J

[hermit]

Favourite non-lethal means of disposing of opposition: the area-effect sleep spell. For mundanes, silencers and normal or APDS ammo do the trick. Not really non-lethal, but at least discreet. And generally, there're some things to keep in mind: Don't kill if there's another way. Don't hesistate to kill either, but don't kill just for killing's sake. Be discreet in what you do.

In your special case ... go somewhere far away and lie low for a while. With the amount of carnage going on in the 6th world, odds are that, afer a few months, the powers that be have given up trailing you and focus on the newest terrorist/bug spirit/dragon/shedim threat.

After your case isn't high-profile any more and only one task force is investigating your whereabouts, find out who the coordinators in investigating your case are, and make sure they stop investitgating. Blackmail, murder, psychotrpoic ice, changing them into bug spirits, do anything to make sure noone is seriously looking for you any more.

Then, deal with all major enemies you made, as above, and as discreetly as possible.

Then start over and be less noisy in your killing sprees, so you don't have to only rely on your GM to be lenient and let you slip by with any kind of shit. :)

Or simply start over. ;)

[Deamon_Knight]

Or... Employ the services of a skilled decker to erase your images from the recordinigs and frame some other poor slobs. Preferably someone you don't like. The lying low option probably is still needed though.

[nezumi]

Non-lethal? Have you tried not getting into firefights in the first place? I've saved tons on my overhead that way.

Gamma scopaline is a GREAT knock-out drug, albeit quite pricey. Unfortunately, M&M really skimps on the drugs, but talk with your GM about getting some more common knock-out drugs. Tasers are great, shock gloves are actually unbalancing in how powerful they are. Generally, I've found that stun weapons are MORE effective than deadly force anyway (compare stun gloves to spurs, stunball to manaball, tasers to pistols. The only place it ceases to be true is gel vs. normal rounds, where it's a toss up, and obscenely powerful weapons like LMGs vs. fire hoses.)

[Kagetenshi]

Dude, tasers to pistols is no comparison. The fifteen-meter cap kills tasers dead when it comes to effectiveness.

~J

[hahnsoo]

You can also dump the PCs into a location where their identity more or less doesn't matter. Something like Bug City or the Renraku Arcology after the shutdown. That's almost like starting over the campaign, though.

[hermit]

You could go to Africa and work as mercs for the Asamando ... it's not like they'Re picky about whom they employ, and you'll propably get boni for collateral damage too! Hey, it puts food on their tables, after all. ;)

[Swing Kid]

Have some awkward footage of the team make the news. Make the team lay low for a while. Make it where noone is willing to touch them for a while. Have each player create a couple of secondary characters to mix up the teams for a while. This way, on any given game night, you will have only one or two of the original team hooking up with some other runners, doing runs that are way below them. This will show a certain realism; the idea of never-changing teams would be suicide to runners in reality, because it wouldn't take long before they were seen as an entity, rather than individuals who run for themselves with multiple teams. This would make the players realize that the only way they are going to get to play their favorite characters as a team is if they chill things out.

Another way is to calculate the reprocutions. How many of the victims of these runs would raise enough stink to want revenge? Have Johnny Law put out a profile on them.

And, by all means, don't be afraid to KILL the characters. Too many GM's think they are on the player's sides. You are their ultimate opponent in the game. Don't take that too far though, they are(hopefully) your friends.

[lorthazar]

Actually becuase the GM likes the action scenes I would say just switch to gel rounds, shock glves and tasers, but keep your Ex-Ex, C-12, andgrenades handy. Sometimes you'll be hired becuase they want you to be big an noisy. Those are the real fun runs. If it comes down to the point that you need to use lethal force and explosive make sure you frame some local terrorist group.

[nezumi]

[Little Bill]

A few things TS left out is that aside from a SWAT team and several patrol cars, we (well, the rest of the team - my character was just along for the ride at that point) also killed several squads worth of Souix military personnel and destroyed an APC, a helicopter, and seriously damaged a thunderbird. The Souix are unlikely to leave us alone at this point, no matter how far we run away. We're effectively international terrorists at this point.

[Demosthenes]