So last night we started On the Run. My regular player, Jace, was joined by his erstwhile missing companion, Nikita. Jace has an NPC Hacker Brother, Reese, and I rolled up a Troll Support Mage, Moira, to offset the size of some of the combats they'd face.

I rolled Moira up as an all support NPC styled 400 point character. She's a Bear Shaman with Mentor Spirit, High Pain Tolerance 3, and Focused Concentration 2.
Also has Combat Paralysis, Simsense Vertigo, Geas (chanting), Sensitive Neural Structure, and is Incompetent with Computers.

I also gave her Conjuring 4 and Sorcery 4.
Stats: 6,2,4,5,4,2,2,5,2,6

Spells:Heal, Resist Pain, Increase Reflexes, Inproved Invisibility.
Bound Spirits: Earth (4), Air (2), Man (2)
Spellcasting Focus: 3
Conjuring Focus: 3
Fetish (all heal spells are limited)


To start 'em off, I had them meet Smiley at a local Library - thought that'd be a creative way to do it, It's public, and a bit archaic (paper books?!?!) so not a lot to worry about in the way of prying eyes. They meet Smiley who offers to loan them any necessary gear as part of his premium (10% off the top), introduces them to each other (that's how I got Moira into the team) then gives them the contact to go to Infinity.

They go to Infinity, connect with Johnson, he leaves, and they start putting out feelers. Here's where the questions begin.

They want to know what the Disc is, or how they'll know they got the right one. Part of the Run is figuring out what the Disc is, so I don't wanna give 'em that info offhand. Thing is, it doesn't say WHAT he tells them as descriptors, except it's an old style optical disc. So I bass it off with the generic statement "He gives you some identifying information". Lame, but I couldn't find anything else.

So they start digging, and eventually they turn up the lead for Nabo. So they go to the concert and begin trying to figure out how to get in, etc. Now On The Run mentions Jager, Nabo's novacoke addicted buddy - but never tells you exactly HOW to find out that info on him. Since they don't go out of their way to dig up info on gang members they can exploit to get in (kinda specific, isn't that?) and since Jace only rolls 1 hit on his Knowledge:Seattle Gangs roll, I don't give 'em that info.

Eventually, they get Moira to summon an Air spirit to conceal them, then go pick the lock on the back door. She casts and sustains Increase Reflexes on Jace (4 hits) who exploits his twin-silenced Predator IVs on Semi-Auto with 4 IPs to take down the 2 outside guards ASAP. Nikita has the same setup and follows with her 2 IPs and between them, they manage to take out all four backstage guards with Silenced weapons in 3 seconds.

I described the air spirit's concealment as a rolling bank of fog, but decided that only they could see it. People not concealed just saw nothing. Sound good?

So they go in, hide the bodies, swipe their gear, then use a stun baton on the ork on the catwalk, and go in, stun the peeps in Nabo's dressing room, and eventually find the commlink. They take it with 'em and begin tracing it.

Naturally they find the link to Zipper (manual doesn't say how they figure out she's at The Cathode Glow, so I let Reese figure that out, being part of the Hacker Community).

Now here's where it gets TRICKY.

They approach Zipper and tell her that they have a buyer who wants to pay good money, but wants it ASAP. Eventually they bribe her with 500 Nuyen, and she agrees to tell them where Loomis is.

Thing is - the manual says she's to warn Loomis. Except she doesn't think he's at risk now. So I have her notify Loomis that she's passed on info to some extremely interested buyers who'll be coming by soon.


So it's about 2AM and they head over to the Coda. They decide to break in the back and search the bar, since it's closed for the nite. So they pick it, and I have it set up with a motion detector that turns the lights on - no wired security network, just an old fashioned motion detector.

So they shrug, search the place and find a safe. Right as they're about to start picking it, the Trashers come in the front door and try to mess with 'em. Well, they take the Trasher leader out ASAP, and the rest of 'em (armed only with pool cues) run like heck.

They finish picking the safe and find nothing of use in it (some credsticks, that's it).

So they decide to stay there the night and wait for Loomis in the morning (having found out from the Trasher leader that he'll bein around 11).

So Moira summons an Air spirit to conceal them, and they sleep with either Jace or Nikita on guard through the nite.


11 rolls around, Loomis comes in, and they eventually get the disk from him. They call their Johnson, and he says he'll be by to pick it up and hangs up.

About 10 minutes later, the Shangri La team bursts through the door.


Except that the Runners are suspicious and so have had the Air spirit conceal them again, and they're sitting at a table in the bar, guns at the ready.


Now, I may have messed this up, but I had the shangri-la mage see them in Astral and point the others to them. Is that frosty?

The other four (the grunts have automatics skill and no pistol skill, but only carry pistols - so I replaced the pistols with HK227Xs) lay down suppressive fire in that area wh ile the mage casts a Powerball at the area. Moira and Reese hit the dirt, Jace and Nikita start making edge+reflex rolls to avoid damage, and avoid SOME.

Jace and Nikita return fire and hurt the Mage bad, and start working on the others too, multiple IPs and all. Moira summons a Spirit of Man after 2 rounds and has it cast Mob Control on the Shangri-La peeps.

Not sure if I did it right, but she basically freezes them all at once. (can she recall a bound spirit and have it cast a spell in the same turn? both are simple actions, so I THINK she can)

After they're held (do they get a save against that?) Jace and Nikita execute all but the mage and LT. Then decide to have them concealed, call a Road Warrior, and drive to the Body Mall where they hope to sell them for organs.


So - the big question is this - how much money do they get for the bodies? There's nothin in SR4 for prices of normal organs.

I think I have more questions, but can't remember 'em at the moment.

Any comments on how it's going so far? Am I using the Mage too much?

The real question is: Are your players having fun?

By using an NPC to augment the PC forces, -and- by using powerful magic, you're walking a pair of fine lines. The first, and most obvious point is that whenever you introduce a NPC that works with the players, you run the risk of overshadowing the PCs accomplishments with the NPC, or at the least, stealing part of their glory. Secondly, magic in and of itself will always run the risk of marginalizing other participants.

Are you using the Mage too much? *Shrug* Maybe. Maybe not. Like the previous poster said, much of that is determined by how much fun your players are having. If you're concerned about that, you could certainly scale back the encounters to a more appropriate power level.

As far as Organs/Bodies - A few thousand yen profit, if that, should cut it. Without going into all the logistics of it, the organs themselves are probably worth more than that, but there's overhead, the risk the clinic runs by processing 'corporate assets', etc. Additionally, you set the precedent of turning your players into little body-count-generating-organ-leggers if you really make it worth their while to take that route too often.

All of that said: Sounds like you're on track, and I wish your group the best of luck (And fun) completing the adventure.

In the next round, the Shangri La mage would have cast Powerball again, and would have likely killed a few of the runners. That's sort of why I figured it was ok to step in.

Remember that occasional PC deaths are acceptable.

On the rules questions - calling and commanding a spirit are both simple actions, but the spirit's spellcasting is a complex action, so the calling and commanding would be one action pass, then the spirit's spellcasting would be on the next action pass. Also, remember that the innate spell ability has to be a spell that the summoner knows. Mob Control is resisted with Willpower plus summoning. Issuing a command is, itself, a simple action.

Don't sweat it too much. Keeping the game flowing is more important than getting every rule exactly right. Consistency is good, though, so let your players know about any oopses, so they don't try the same thing, and then get upset that it suddenly doesn't work for them.


As far as the organlegging, it depends on their contacts, and how much street savvy they have in the way of the appropriate knowledge skills. An organlegger, assuming they can even find one, might even try charging them, since he is getting rid of bodies/evidence for them. And some contacts might be repelled at the notion - they may risk their street doc or fixer contact losing some loyalty, or even gaining Notoriety points. If they have the appropriate knowledge and contacts, then like Steak and Spirits said, just a few thousand, if that, to avoid encouraging them.

As irreverent as their way of presenting it might be, one of the very recent episodes of Fear the Boot (podcast, www.feartheboot.com) talked about a lot of "bad GMing" issues. Not to be taken without some salt in some cases, it still hits on a lot of issues.

I bring it up because of the things they talked about were NPCs overshadowing the characters. Not saying you're diong that, MDM, just thought it might be worth a listen for a self-described "new GM".

So if the summoner doesn't know the spell, she can't command the spirit to cast it?


Oops.

Crap. Somehow I missed the whole 35 point limit. Thanks for pointing that out.


And yes, the Spellcasting Focus is limited to Heal Spells.

Is the Summoning Focus supposed to be limited to a single type of spirit?

MDM,

You might want to keep track of the number of people that Jace and company kill, and who they are. If they killed a bunch of gangers, the gang will try and hunt them down. The Shangri-la team kill will probably not be retaliated, as it would probably just cost them more nuyen.
More for cause and effect reasons than morality reasons.

As for the Shangri-la mage, or other such mages, you might want to have them kill the spirit in the futur, rather than cast an area spell, as it will allow the rest of the mage's team to see their enemies.
And is there any reason why the shangri-la mage didn't have any bound spirits, or even an unbound spirit on hand? Even if only to neutralize Moira's spells.

But as others have said, if everyone is having fun, no real reason to change.

Spellcasting foci is about broad catagories of spells
Not sure if you ment Health spells, or just the heal spell

Yeah, health spells.


Main reason I didn't have the Shangri La mage have any spirits is that the module didn't give her any.

Hmm, when you said that they took out the 4 guards at the concert, I was assuming that you meant kill, not something like gel rounds.
Am I mistaken? Those were the gangers that I was talking about, as their rockstar buddy might well be inclined to help finance the revenge taking.

Well, someone killed them. That might be enough to start an investigation.

Did your players do anything about the astral signature of the spirit using it's concealment power? If not, all it may take is one "occult investigator" to read the signature.

It really depends if you want to specifically discourage collateral damage during runs, and what you want to hassle your runners about. An investigation over deaths in one run could act as a basis for future runs. It's really all up to you.

When you state that "in your book" you think someone has little morals, then you must be basing that statement on something concrete in comparison. Therefore I used the phrase "little-to-no morals". Note that I never once made any statement to the fact that the so called moral code is "less" than yours (specifically or in general). I purposely used the term "different".

And I stand by my statement.

Or is it your belief that any person who has ever done active duty with any military in the course of history is someone with "little morals".

I'm currently trying to make my group cause more collateral damage. They play gangers, and still they mostly go with gel rounds out of habit. I'm trying to get the point across that rival gangers will think they are pussies if everyone who messes with them can live to fight another day. At the same time I'm worried that they will become confused when they eventually move on to more professional jobs again. Oh well. You just have to be consistent in your logic and the players will learn what you concider appropriate behaviour.

Mintcar,

You could get your gangers to drop off naked rival gangers in the barrens, or near a ghould haunt, or in other rival ganger territory, or near "Bubba" the troll, or washed in neet, then permanent dyied hot pink, etc...

Then, the other gangs might say "Go after anyone else, it's safer, the worst that happens is that we get killed, against XXXXX, it's much, much worse".