Over the weekend I had the following idea for a short campaign, but without my sourcebooks (and a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) I think it would be difficult for me to do this right. My idea is that a team is sent to go and storm Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. The problem is that Willy Wonka is a near-invulnerable monster who hasn't aged a day since the setting of the original novel.

The premise is that a military colonel from UCAS called Colonel Troutmale who is working for the CIA and is stationed in England wants to hire some shadowrunners to rescue a group of children who have disappeared in the chocolate factory. It turns out that Willy Wonka has a nasty habit of luring children into his factory using golden tickets where he performs gruesome medical experiments on them, such as seeing how long they survive being immersed in chocolate syrup and passed through a plumming system. Colonel Troutmale doesn't know that Willy Wonka is as powerful as he is, though, and he has no idea that the Oompa Loompas are actually bioengineered monstrosities from Aztecnology who have access to all kinds of suppressed firearms inside the factory so that they can put down internal problems. Therefore he tells the team that they can't simply blow up the factory or pelt it with LAW shots from the outside, but that they need to go in as quietly as possible to rescue the kids. Rescuing kids like this isn't CIA business, but rather is something that is of personal interest to Colonel Troutmale, so that's why he needs to use shadowrunners.

The basic idea of the run is that the team goes in and, since Willy Wonka is diabolically intelligent, he keeps resistance soft until they're deep in the factory. Then, he uses his Ooompa Loompa leigons to cut the party off and the campaign is really about a desperate fight for survival as the party has to escape from the factory in one piece with as many children as possible. The mood should be of being hunted. The entire factory should start reverbrating with the following chant as the PCs start to take hits and weaken: Ooompa Loompa doopideedowned, don't mess with us or you will get owned!

There's also a great glass elevator which Willy Wonka will use to shoot the party mages into deep space if they're not careful. Willy Wonka is intimately familiar with the Horrors found in deep space and knows what he's doing. (See, Willy Wonka and the Great Glass Elevator.)

Also, the factory is surrounded by a rating 15 barrier and inside there's a background count. This will help the whole scenario from becoming lame due to astral scouting.

In order to make sure that the scenario "works" and that the team simply doesn't walk in with a backpack full of LAWs each and just blows a beeline of holes through the factory walls, thus defeating the purpose of the scenario, Colonel Troutmale will arrange a normal commercial suborbital for the PCs where they'll have trouble taking weapons through airport security. He'll promise to provide weapons on-site from the CIA arsenal. I really see this scenario as being more of a "Raygun" scenario with real world weapons. I think that this would make more of a mind-bending contrast with the surreal obscenity of the Chocolate Factory, especially once the PCs start to bleed all over the candy trees.

My ideas for the things Colonel Troutmale can provide:
*M590 shotgun with 00 shot, solid slugs, and lockbuster rounds
*HK MP5N submachineguns loaded with JHP ammunition and suppressors
*M9 pistols with suppressors and JHP ammunition
*HK Mk 23 pistols with suppressors and JHP ammunition
*UMP 45 submachineguns with JHP and suppressors
*M16A2 rifle with FMJ 5.56 ammo and attached M203 grenade launcher (only one or two for support purposes, since this whole thing is supposed to take place indoors)
*breaching charges, fragmentation grenades, flashbangs, and 40mm launch grenades
*Light Combat Armor, which will let the PCs dramatically take a lot of hits without getting dragged down the death swirl too quickly. These should come with helmets which theoretically have radios and visual feed for Colonel Troutmale to follow along, but Colonel Troutmale will only hear "...crab battle...crab battle..." and the PCs will only hear "use hanging mode!" due to Willy Wonka's diabolical electronic warfare skills


My ideas for the Ooompa Loompas' loadout:
*FAMAE S.A.F. with integral silencers, since the Ooompa Loompas are diabolical azzie creations. Since the Ooompa Loompas don't normally deal with armored shadowrunners they've only got JHP 9mm rounds. Since Willy Wonka wants to keep things quiet the Ooompa Loompas will preferentially use these weapons unless the situation gets out of control.
*Light Combat Armor, with radios and visual feed which allows Willy Wonka to coordinate their actions with chilling hive-mind like efficiency
*flashbangs, smoke grenades
*Neostead shotguns; one tube will be loaded with shot, and the other with slugs, for maximum tactical flexibility
*a few RPKs for emergency situations; this choice also prevents the PCs from being able to pick more 5.56 ammo off of the dead Ooompa Loompas for their M16A2. If they want real armor penetrating power they'll be forced to pick up and lug around these clumsy eastern bloc machine guns. There are only 75 round drums for the RPKs and no smaller magazines. Encumberance rules for the win!

Interesting. Not a bad one. Personally, I think that if you're going to do a bug hunt properly, you'll want oompa loompas who have nasty claws rather than silenced guns. This also allows for Willy Wonka to have had the oompa loompas around since the setting of the original novel.

The second element of a classic bug hunt is a legitimate reason that the players can't nuke the place from orbit and call it a day. The classic answers to that in a shadowrun context are:

• paydata
• hostages

Fortunately the chocolate factory provides ample potential for both. The man has been keeping himself alive for almost two hundred years on chocolate and Essence Drain, so he has got some crazy research data that he has access to. The hostage angle can be taken care of by the children going in. So much so that I would suggest that the mission be given by a concerned parent. Perhaps Ms. Salt?

Anyhow, you've got a setup where there are actually a huge mess of deadly traps all over the facility and nasty orange monsters with the strength of aligators patrolling the place. That's a pretty sweet place for a bug hunt, especially if there are primary and secondary objectives that limit the amount of collateral damage that the PCs can afford to inflict.

Not bad.

"Hold your breath.
Make a wish.
Count to three.

Come with me and you'll be in a world of double penetration."

-Frank

Remember that the Oompa-Loompas were originally African pygmies but Wonka bleached and dyed them in response to charges of racism.

Or, Wonka could be a Toxic Hermetic mage & the Oompa-Loompas are True Form Spirits.

you're all monsters who should be taken out and shot.

i would have a 3-way battle between the runners, Wonka's forces, and the Vermicious Knids that have infested part of the factory.

...nice twist.

I recently picked up LS's Unfortunate Events - The Complete Wreck & am reading through it now.

heheheheh...

it can't be nuked form orbit because some rich kid is now in the factory-got to get him out. so you've also got to be careful with them AP rounds, WP etc.

The oompah loompahs should be high tech shooters but more of a bug hunt. Goblins maybe, ghouls(my fav, rich tastey treats made by ghouls) keep it whimsical. we all crawl through barrens or corp facilities or factories but if you want to mess with the heads of players, keep it light-hte candy room from either movies, it's just biuzarre to think of a fire fight there, but what if that near miss spray of bullets bathes you in jelly or marshmellow from that pod over head? Of maybe when Wonka declares everything here is edible, he means you too and you're too close to that particular plant- chomp-

Imagine a firefight in a room crowded with pink fluffy sheep that are completely harmless (cotton candy/cotton wool/wool candy?) or brightly colored rooms. not your suual corp office but nice little halls with many small offices off of them instead of cubicals-a nightmare to search., all in cheerful yellows and blues

Does the chocolate river had an incubus on it's banks?The matrix site should be heavy with psychotropic black ice - Mr wonka is wonderful, look at his joy, etc.

and at the bottom of it all- switch genres- Crunchy Frogs!

This thread is why I love Shadowrun.

no she doesn't
that's exactly what I was thinking of.

"Maraccino Cherry? yuck!"

Bad images aside, willy wonka's factory allows for a LARGE variation of terrain.

Think:

Jungle (the garden)

Factory (research labs)

CQB: (empty/abandoned chocolate tubes)

or perhaps a scuba battle IN chocolate?

and thikcer, seriously cutting down the range of projectile weapons but damage from concussion grenades at ground zero would beworse.

You, sir, have utterly and irrevocably ruined my favorite childhood story. And that takes a lot of doing.

Bravo, Snow Fox!!! Your Post-Fu is truly strong.

hey notice my sig?

Besides, Gene Wilder's WW and the Oompah Loompah's in the book are osem scary fraggers. it takes very little to imagine him slipping right over the edge.