However, last night's session with my gang here was just too much.
The team conists of:
Ork Hermetic Mage, Spirit Bane(Water) Negative Quality, played by my friend. Awesome character, balanced between spellcasting, summoning, and his monowhip. From the Seattle hood basically...a well-educated and smart hooligan would be the best way to describe it. Nicknamed JT. Looks and acts pretty laid back, but has a measure of the street roughness, but still is punctual and has a member of professionalism. Has done a few things in past that resembeled shadowruns. A long dreadlocked ork, whose a bit on the slimmer side for an ork however. Part of a gang that speaks Tolkien orkish as a secret language.
Elven magician who has all conjuring skills, no spellcasting, but does have counterspelling. Doesn't have much in the way of non magical skills, however he has many bound spirits. Played by my friend. Another awesome character who is very useful, from Tir Tangire. Educated, but little in the way of physical ability, nicked Leviathian. Looks and acts pretty high class, and acts pretty professional as well. Isn't really experienced at 'shadowrunning' however. A tall, skinny, pale elf.
Adept who goes between social and combat skills. Works as a bouncer/bodyguard/enforcer sometimes, straight from Norway. Has a massive intimidation skill, kinesics, but also has a good unamred combat(kickboxing), killing hands, critical strike, and a massive perception. A scary guy who tends to know what youre doing before you do it and cause a bit of uncomfort, looking like a satanic,pale long haired metalhead. Played by me, nicknamed Mørke. Acts fairly professional but closest thing he's done to a shadowrun are enforcer jobs. First time in the USA.
Skipping over the initial meeting(which went well..the chars get along...particulary my guy and JT for the heavy metal knowledge skill tie ins...my guy was in the US bodyguarding and roading for a small Norwegian band for a one shot show), there was a funny instance when my char went to scope out Dante's Inferno(a pagan/black magic guy like him's wet dream), and kicking Leviathian out of his room after picking someone up
Ok, so the stage is set...our very powerful in the magical aspect, and rather diverse(but still very lacking in stuff like technical and stealth skills...yes, stealth is important to runs...but our characters never really DID stuff like ths, so why would they have the skills?), have to do a B&E and recovery job for this very valuable object called the Ruby Rose...however, this could be an item, a person, a weapon, a program, a focus, a sled, a tissue, a pair of scissors...we have no idea. Supposed to be held in this factory in this small area outside of Seattle, a city a couple hours away. So first our characters find a car to transport us...Mørke and JT have bikes, but Leviathian didn't...and bikes aren't too good for transporting gear...so with a little contact work, my char's little sister contact(a 19 year old technomancer who has some internet buddies i guess), managed to find us a vehicle...something lovingly nicknamed the Green Machine...the worst POS hatchback ever. And a rather 'Hot Ride' at that.
But beggars can't be choosers so we take the car. (After my character sent via commlink a picture of the car, there was about 10 minutes of laughter on the other line. Not to mention the people driving by us 'complimenting' us on our ride.)After doing some overwatch on the place(having Leviathian's water spirit deny JT to 'his' astral space...he doesn't like him too much), its mid afternoon, not a busy place, and there was only three people inside(one magically active), we decide to try to do this now...strike when they least expect it! Well, we were trying to devulge a plan first. We needed to create a distraction because of our lack of stealth or computer skills(of course none of us tried to hire a hacker first...but with our inexperience at 'running' it sort of makes sense), so first...
Mørke(Intuition 4, Logic 2, quick on the uptake but sometimes doesn't think technical things through, and 'logical' ideas sometimes elude him, mild addiction to sim) : Well, let's see...we could alwyas park the green machine(which is getting ditched), on the train tracks behind the factory to cause a distraction. Could work...the folks inside might see the car and try to move it, and we could sneak in.
Others:
Real Life Table(all four of us, players and GM) :
Ok, so it was an idea...but we decided against it, because of the lack of roads leading to the train tracks.
Mørke then decides to put his Fake Photographer licence into play...or tries to...we were going to act like inspectors. However, our characters lack of proper costumes for such a thing(we didn't know how inspectors dressed anyway...my guy's been in the US for about a week total)...a guy wearing a shirt with an unreadable band logo and spiked bracelets, a dreadlocked heavy metal ork and a well dressed elf would not have looked convincing.
JT: Well...we could try applying for jobs.
(More laughter. At this point we might as well tried to deliver pizza. Mental Note: Pick up Infiltration and Computer skills soon. I think our characters might see the use in them even after our first run.)
However...wonderfully enough this was the best plan. So we try it. However, the guy was being rather short at the door and didn't let us in. So we were just going to go back to the car(Leviathian was there waiting...since the ork was a hooligan and me an 'immigrant' we i guess were most believable about applying), when we get a commlink call from him...his Watcher spirit went off and then he percieved astrally and the magically active guy inide was also...so they both were seen and the guy inside RUNS into another room.)
Leviathian(comm): He sees me! Oh, man....(sends Water Elemental inside with the task of incapaciting...not killing...the man inside...since at this point it was obvious that he was hiding something.)
JT and Mørke: At this point things were going to hell...so if we didn't do anything...and being new at this...JT had given Mørke the signal that if he winked his eye...to follow his lead...Mørke agreed, thinking that the ork knew what he was doing...
JT: LEEEEEROOOOOOOY JEEEEENNNNKKKIIIINNNNSS!!
Mørke: ...well, ok then...
So then JT tries shooting out the glass so we can get in...Leviathian told us that the elemental was heading in, so should we. Well, we head in alright...our B&E turning into Bash and Eradicate apparently.
Mørke kicks in the rest of the glass, making a large enough hole to get thru(the shots made holes but didn't shatter the glass), and we go in.
JT: GET OUT HERE! THIS IS THE COPS!
Mørke: (deciding to play it up, rocking the huge Intimidation skill follows suit)
We find the two front workers, and just tyr to get info out of them. We do not harm them at all(tho Mørke rolled so high they were practiclaly peeing themelves), but it was determined these guys did not know the shady happenings...)
OK, we go from job applicants to undercover cops.
After percieving astrally(Leviathian heading in now), there is an astral barrier in the BACK of the factory..underground? THere was more than 2 levels to this place. JT summons an elemental to guard the two guys(with instructions not to hurt them...we aren't murderers) and we start looking. Leviathian goes astral, and sees half of the building underground has no barrier...but there are two basement levels. The magically active guy dissapeared, along with the elemental...they both somehow got to B2.
Here is our dilemma: There are no stairs to B1. There are stairs connecting B1 and B2...but we cannot find out to get to B1! We have been searching...we found a computer upstairs and on the 1st floor...which at this point might be our only hope. We deduced the path is behind the astral barrier...so we cannot see it. THere are more people downstairs...the magical guy is still alive trying to hold off the elemental with pistols(we deduced Christian Bale is now fighting the elemental..aka Gunslinger Adept), and the elemental is schooling some of the others, however. The elemental was given instructions to incapacitate, not kill the guy(questioning). We need to get to B2...but even with my characters massive Perception we see NO physical openings...this leaves a computerized opening. JT was sitting in the adept's chair, spinning it, pulling candlesticks, my character was playing with file cabinets(pocketing a bunch of file chips in the process 'just incase'), and doing every textbook thing you'd see in the 'shadowrunner' sims.
The guys we determined did not know there was any basement levels...we really interrogated the hell out of them. They were hirees to work in the ACTUAL factory, but perhaps did not know the factory's real deal.
This run netted us a lot of RP karma...we simply did what our new to running characters would do even tho some were asinine...but some of the ideas we came up with were simply amazing(sarcasm). We might as well yelled 'Candygram!!!' at the front door. The Covert Ops specialist sample character would be crying if she saw this scenario.
However, if our group comes out of this Jenkins situation intact, we will now learn the importance of stealth and technical skills in a shadowrunning situation...so characters can grow, eh?
There were other instances the whole night which just had us laughing...like our 'hacker' is actually JT because he has no comp skill but a logic of 4, making him the closest thing we have. Apparently my Agility 4 Athletics 2 character is our 'stealth specialist', with our summoner being the shadowrun 'party' with five bound elementals.
I KNOW some others here had B&E runs go wrong...that didn't result in death but instead a lot of player laughter. I didn't think it was possible that a team would actually think to knock on the door to a run spot...but yet, we went and did it. I think things might have been better had the adept not been percieving and seen the other mage.
