Taking another look at LoneStar, So, you think you got away... |
Taking another look at LoneStar, So, you think you got away... |
Jun 22 2005, 04:21 PM
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#26
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
And if gangs "rise up" against a Lone Star intrusion, what exactly are they going to do? So they have assault rifles and ATGMs, whoop-de-fucking-doo. When it comes to a situation like a quick, well-planned, forceful raid, I seriously doubt the average ganger is going to be even as effective a combatant as the average Habr Gidr militiaman, and LS's special units have as great a technological advantage as TFR in Mog -- only the gangs lack the 500-to-1 numerical superiority and the unifying force of patridiotism, and LS the serious misunderstanding of local culture, that allowed 10/3/93 to happen.
Like for most in this thread, however, this kind of thing would be very rare in my games. The targeted organization(s) would have to be seriously hurting LSs (or any other LEOs) bottom line for them to pull off something like this. |
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Jun 22 2005, 04:27 PM
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#27
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Traumatizing players since 1992 Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 3,282 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Las Vegas, NV Member No.: 220 |
No, they don't. Rare is the criminal adept at hiding anything. 99% of the criminals out there are absolutel morons cooking meth in suburbia fumes and all that don't blow themselves up only by sheer luck. These are the idiots that rob stores then brag to others about it, and the gangers that squal in a heartbeat to get their friends nailed for a lighter sentence. This is the way it works, the rest is hollywood bullshit. The vast, vast majority of all criminals crack in questioning and turn in friends associates and everyone else to get a lighter sentence. The ones that don't are by far the exception to the rule, and they are rare. A huge chunk of arrests where I work are ciminals sold out by other criminals.
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Jun 22 2005, 04:26 PM
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#28
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,453 Joined: 17-September 04 From: St. Paul Member No.: 6,675 |
Pure, unadulterated evidence that people are stupid.
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Jun 22 2005, 04:36 PM
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#29
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
Austere, I think you severely underestimate the quality of the gangs in the Z-zones. okay, so it's true, you do have your hooders. But some of those hooders are trolls, and potentially in body armor. An entire team of Lone Star could empty small arms fire into him and he'd just keep coming. You'd need a heavy weapon for that - and while you're trying to wheel the heavy weapon around, his three orc chummers from a deeper gang that he did a big favor for show up and fire antivehicular rockets at your wheels and antipersonelle rockets at you. Then the troll ganger proceeds to bash your skulls in.
And that's to say nothing about the Crime Mall, which is more like a terrorist bazaar than anything. Remember the movie Tomorrow Never Dies? I don't think Lone Star honestly wants to mess with a place like that. Not to mention the numerous Shadowrunners, or the pirates and smugglers. Remember, the Star ain't the only things in the air. They might find their invasion of the barrens stymied by antitank drones and T-birds. And BitBasher, please remember that we're not dealing with Real Life here. We're dealing with Shadowrun, which is as pure a form of Hollywood bullshit as you can get without going to Hollywood. No, the criminals are not idiots. The idiot criminals in Shadowrun are the dead ones. The ones who survive are the vast majority, and they are vast indeed, because of the population. |
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Jun 22 2005, 04:48 PM
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#30
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,007 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
More to the point, the idiot criminals are the ones on the outskirts of the Barrens because they don't survive deeper in. As for dismissing the ATGMs, are you planning to send everyone in in separate vehicles? If not, you're going to get a few downed vehicles, and that's going to translate into everyone inside getting downed.
~J |
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Jun 22 2005, 04:48 PM
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#31
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
Umm, no? Heavily compensated ARs or SMGs firing bursts of APDS (standard gear for FRTs/SWATs/etc) will tear up trolls in anything less than Ballistic-10. In real life terms, that's what you got HMGs for: to tear apart large obstacles.
Those heavy weapons (HMGs, autocannons, directed energy weapons, multiple missile launchers, etc.) will be mounted on vehicles/drones controlled by riggers. "Wheel around" = Sensor Test to lock on, 1 init pass out of ~3 allowed per CT. Those heavy weapons wouldn't be used except for special purposes, however -- unless gangers in your world often sport armored fighting vehicles...
Right now IRL, if we could locate terrorist bazaars, staging a direct action against them would be no problem whatsoever -- putting together a TF and "neutralizing" the place and anyone occupying it would be a minor operation. It's just that we can't locate them, or direct action would not prove very useful.
Okay, I get that you want your world to be full of (Hollywood-)bullshit, but are you sure you want to go this far with it? Because that's just insane. The last fucking thing the pros would do is to join the fighting, on any side.
I do believe it was you yourself who pointed out to me how ridiculously easy it is in SR3 to shake off a missile with a good rigger. Taking down a high-tech fighting vehicle (air- or landborne) with a run-of-the-mill ATGM won't be easy anyway, and the riggers won't be doing any of that slowly-hovering-at-100-feet bullshit you see in the BHD movie. If you get a lot of launches, someone is of course going to hit and cause damage. This is more likely if: 1) gangers in your game have a lot of ATGMs and are prepared and willing to use them; 2) the LEO gets dragged into a long engagement. For perspective, there were hundreds if not thousands RPG-7 rockets fired at the helos on 10/3/93 with 2 hits and 1 near-miss(?), and probably thousands more at the ground vehicles producing ~50 casualties and 5-10 break-downs of unarmored vehicles. This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Jun 22 2005, 05:01 PM |
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Jun 22 2005, 05:00 PM
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#32
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
If it's a toss-up between being rousted by the Star just for living in their doss, and getting in on the fighting, I imagine they'd start shooting.
Besides, professionals still have to look out for their Contacts and their sources, after all. You don't need the Star's stupidity bringing down your friends and your supply lines. That makes bisuness hard. If it's coming down to the point where the Star enters the barrens with the intention of eradicating or arresting every living thing within and restoring their brand of Law & Order-for-hire, chances are you're already surrounded. So the only way out is to fight your way out. |
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Jun 22 2005, 05:01 PM
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#33
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
Apparently we're talking about completely different game worlds. IMG, no LEO would ever try anything like that. I was talking about a quick raid against a small target (such as a part of one gang in one location in the barrens) with overwhelming force. Even the article linked in the first message describes a raid against only one gang. This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Jun 22 2005, 05:04 PM |
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Jun 22 2005, 05:03 PM
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#34
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,007 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Crap, you're right. I've been playing with the houserule that successes add to the number of successes the Rigger requires to shake the missile for so long I forgot that that's what it is. I cede this point. On the other hand, if I remember the rules correctly (and I'll have to check, it's been a long time since I last used unguided munitions), just going with a rocket instead solves a lot of that. Yes, it's ridiculous. There's also the fact that presumably the vehicle actually has to slow to a (near) stop at some point for people to deploy.
I disagree. If you've got a doss in the Barrens, anything that makes the Star less likely to raid anything within is good for you. ~J |
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Jun 22 2005, 05:07 PM
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#35
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
If the raid is well planned, the gangs shouldn't have time to get their heavy weaponry prepared by that time (ie. it might not be a good idea to do such a raid if there's a suspected intel leak). There are also ways to screen the deployment area to minimize the risk there. Ground vehicles moving or stopped without cover and airborne vehicles doing overwatch would be more likely targets, unless something goes horribly wrong even before the raid is launched.
So if your team had some business in the barrens, and they suddenly woke up to LS raiding a location near them with massive force (of men, equipment, magic, everything), and the raid posed no direct threat to your team, you would actually go out there and slug it out with them? This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Jun 22 2005, 05:13 PM |
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Jun 22 2005, 05:22 PM
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#36
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 908 Joined: 31-March 05 From: Georgia Member No.: 7,270 |
QUOTE]Except that today - in the US at least - there are no places like the Barrens that have no governmental control whatsoever, and that the cops aren't even required to police, because it's not worth the trouble.[/QUOTE]
True. But even with the popular Mogadishu reference, the attack/ambush was staged by A warlord and his followers, not ALL warlords in the city, and their followers, although there were other fighting elements, supposedly. (Bowden's book on BlackHawk Down, and several other texts suggest the presence of Al-Qaeda, Iranian Intelligence, and other substantially more dangerous elements than the common khat-chewing clansmen. ) There were also warlords supporting the arrests the Rangers were making, by either remaining neutral or intelligence. (enemy of my enemy...etc). So I still don't think a single, or even a series of puntative raids into a Z zone would result in an all out street war (meaning ALL gangs and no-good-doers in the zone engaging the LS), although, as I said earlier, an effort to actually RETAKE the zone, may very well require a Fallujah type effort. |
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Jun 22 2005, 05:32 PM
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#37
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 437 Joined: 11-April 05 Member No.: 7,318 |
The Barrens are full of people. Normal, civilian, poor, downtrodden people. LS can't just begin throwing shells or missiles into the Barrens. They'd need very good intel, or the press would pick up on the dead civilians, SIN-less or not.
If LS invades the Barrens, in an attempt to restore order, they would have to take a "bite" at a time, trying to demilitarize the area. Pretty much what they are trying in Baghdad, cutting the city into zones and controlling traffic. And much like in Irak and any other historic occupation, the resistance will toll killed cops/soldiers every day. You have to turn the people on your side. Only then will they begin to give LS info on gang hideouts and weapon caches. And in SR, where a SIN-less citizen has less chance of getting a real SIN and social security, than a snowball has of surviving in the elemental plane of fire, I just fail to see any bargaining chips in LS's pocket to buy the local populaces support. Secondly, the occupation will require massive manpower. Meaning the AAA, AA and A areas will see reduced service, leading to more crime from the more well organized gangs. No, I do not think the gangs will all unite in a turf war. But yes, all the gangs will resist strongly and there will be frequent local shootouts, and loads of hidden traps and bombs. LS does not have the economic incentive to bring law and order to the Barrens. And the city of Seattle couldn't afford it either. It would be forced to deal with the millions of SIN-less that live in there. |
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Jun 22 2005, 05:32 PM
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#38
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,007 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Yes. Anything else encourages similar action in the future, whereas direct action improves general working conditions by reducing police morale and resources. If the action looked too hot to handle, it would be time to browse through the directory of HTR team homes (especially those with families) or visit some nearby stations. Leave them a present to come back to. One way or another, they pay in blood for every step they take. ~J |
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Jun 22 2005, 05:46 PM
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#39
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
The TFR did the attacking, clan HG just did (a piss-poor job of) the defending. Considering the target and the routes in and out, no other fighting force in or around Mogadishu than that of Aidid/SNA/HG and the local militias (pretty much all of which were fighting) could have taken part unless they'd have pushed en masse towards the UN and TFR HQs and central Mog. The strength-at-arms of SNA/HG and the militias around central Mogadishu was tens of thousands. Counting everyone armed and willing to fight (=to fire at) TFR should they come their way, you get a 6-digit figure. Compare that with 450 for all of the TFR. Since TFR was there to fight against Aidid, SNA and HG, the other warlords and clans had no cause to fight them. You'd have to be really fucking stupid, and an incredibly bad diplomat, to engage in low-intensity fighting in a part of the world where everybody wants to kill you. (Although in central Mog, most did.) Not that this has anything to do with possible raiding of gangs in barrens in the SR world. The gangs don't number in the hundreds of thousands and they don't make up all of the society, not in the barrens and not anywhere else. They're no more united than the clans of Somalia, they have much less reason to engage in stand-up fighting against anyone, and certainly against a huge LEO. |
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Jun 22 2005, 05:46 PM
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#40
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Incertum est quo loco te mors expectet; Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,546 Joined: 24-October 03 From: DeeCee, U.S. Member No.: 5,760 |
Odd. I'd say no. After all, your neighbors wouldn't do the same for you, and really, they aren't here to clean the place up (and if they are, I'm sure there'll be a new scum pit soon enough). They'll be gone soon, some neighbors will be gone, and life will return to normal.
If it's repeated, maybe I'll begin to complain, but really, I don't know what they're here for. Maybe they finally found that terrorist, Bill Gates. Who knows. But shooting back sure isn't going to help me at all. |
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Jun 22 2005, 05:51 PM
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#41
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
So I guess either you play in a superhero-type game (in power level, though obviously not in moral guidelines) or your group is suicidal? A few groups of runners vs. the combined might of all the special units and Heavy Gear of a huge LEO from the surrounding areas doesn't sound like a fair fight. Going after the personnel of the LEO, especially the high ranking ones, after-the-fact (or before, if you have some kick-ass intel) in their civilian lives would be less idiotic, but I still have to wonder how runners willing to risk their careers and their lives to protect some over-zealous street gang they've got little to nothing to do with manage to survive in the shadows. |
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Jun 22 2005, 06:02 PM
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#42
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
Runners have turf, too.
And like the gangs, they don't appreciate being rousted. Say the pigs roust your doss? Even if your advanced intel lets you abandon the place, you poured a LOT of money into it, unless you only just rented it for a month, last month. I woulden't appreciate it. So yes, if I had advanced intel, I'd leak the word like a friggin' firehose. I'd want every ganger and terrorist and other general ne'er-do-well in the Barrens ready to repel Lone Star. With overwhelming firepower. We're talking prepared ambush with antivehicular rockets and bombs and stuff. |
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Jun 22 2005, 06:04 PM
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#43
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
Well, that'd be one way to make sure the raid doesn't happen, at least not the way it's originally planned.
What have terrorists got to do with this anyway? What the hell do they care about a LEO raiding a gang? It doesn't make any sense to stage an attack against a heavily armed, even better trained, and incredibly well supported force either when you might as well attack unprotected civilian targets.
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Jun 22 2005, 06:09 PM
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#44
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,007 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
It's not about protecting the street gang. Cops in the Barrens are a threat to everyone. If they aren't after you now, they might be after you later, and if they're willing to come into the Barrens to get you you've already lost. ~J |
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Jun 22 2005, 06:30 PM
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#45
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 139 Joined: 6-February 05 Member No.: 7,059 |
holy crap, how often do you GMs let runners kill cops? In all the games I've run throughout the years I've only allowed the death of cops to happen at the hands of runners/gangers only a few times. When a cop gets killed on duty, that's some major shiz right there. It's like punching a hornet's nest, yes, even for Lonestar. The cop's buddies get pissed, kid gloves come off, and somebody always takes the fall...hard. In my games your best bet is always to evade the cops, keep it off their radar, grease a lot of palms, and dissapear into the shadows to come back another day. You never, ever, want to kill a cop in my game unless it is absolutely unavoidable, but as a GM I will allow you some way out, unless your running like an absolute moron, and I don't tend to run for players like that. If you do kill a cop in my game, you know that heat is coming, so you catch a quick way out of town and start over. I'm talking going all out to dissapear, full surgical reconstruction, new IDs, the whole 9, but that only goes so far when it comes to DNA evidence. Only cowboys kill cops, for fun or otherwise, and they tend to end up dying a horrible death or doing a ton of time as a result. You can take out standard corp. security all day long in my world, it's all fair game on extraterritoriality, but you don't ever kill cops.
As for the article, yeah, the last cop was killed two years ago, but it takes time to get evidence, arrest people, slowly make your way up the foodchain, and then get all the feds to join in on a serious raid like this. They might have even waited until they knew the gangers had a bunch of drugs or guns there to make sentencing that much more heavy. As for the cops/feds levelling that kind of serious firepower on a group and what kind of effect it is going to have, just think about what happened in Waco when the feds went in and it turned into a complete public relations disaster for them because they didn't do it right. What about what happened in that school in Russia a couple of years ago? The russians laid some waste to that place and the hostages, and I remember hearing about it halfway across the world about how bad it went. Just some stuff to think about. |
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Jun 22 2005, 06:39 PM
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#46
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,007 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Do you make cops get paid meaningfully more than janitors? 'Cause they don't in canon.
~J |
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Jun 22 2005, 06:39 PM
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#47
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
It just seems to me like it'd be far more cost-effective, and much less likely to get you killed, for runners to simply avoid being a huge pain in the ass for an organization capable of performing such a raid than to try and discourage said organization from performing them, since trying to discouraging them is going to really piss them off, whether it actually manages to scare them as well or not. shadow_scholar: Beslan was a massive hostage situation which went completely haywire and the military went in without much of a plan -- I don't want to know where you heard about the Russians laying "waste to that place and the hostages". I wouldn't blame you for using some features of Waco (the media leakage and coverage bits in particular) if you play out an LS "intervention" into the barrens in your game, however. This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Jun 22 2005, 06:50 PM |
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Jun 22 2005, 06:40 PM
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#48
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,007 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
That means not being a Shadowrunner. We can start there, sure, but that sorta defeats the premise of the game.
Put it another way: some of you have said it's ok to hit security guards, but cops are off-limits. Unless you're hitting a big corp (AA and up or very large A), odds are the corp doesn't have an in-house security force. That means they contract out. Guess who they probably contract to? If you said Lone Star, give yourself a cookie. If you said Knight Errant give yourself a cookie too, as that's second most likely. Guess what? They're the cops too. The cops aren't just the ones in the police station and walking the beat, or the ones sitting in the HTR vehicles. They're also the ones stationed at the doors of that corp building, or watching the monitors at that other building down the street. That guard in the back room at your apartment building? Lone Star. The guard at the local supermarket? Lone Star. If you don't kill cops, you're in the wrong line of work. ~J |
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Jun 22 2005, 06:54 PM
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#49
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
Oh, right, and I remember one of your threads about how killing all the sec guards you can is a good thing for shadowrunners.
Well, let's just say that we play the game in different ways. While I'm GMing, it pays for the players to keep a bit more to the "shadow"-bit, so they don't have to do a whole lot more of the "running" with a regiment-sized force on their tails. |
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Jun 22 2005, 06:57 PM
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#50
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
Kagentoshi, you forgot about Bob's Discount Guards. :)
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