Ok so I'm gming a game at the moment (My first SR4 :gulp:) and I just wanted to get some ideas here on what people think would happen.

So my runners are investigating a house in Bellvue(Sp?) which I understand is still a posh area of seattle. They are in the house no problems, no alarms triggered or anything. Then it so happens that 1 of the runners has discharged his sniper rifle.... not once.... but 4 times or something silly, this thing isn't silenced at all.

I've never had to run lonestar before, so I just wanted some ideas of how to approach this. Also what happens if some/all of them get caught?

If it was me, I'd just pull out the handy-dandy cheat sheet entitled, "Standby Squads" from the Cheat Sheets section of my Shadowrun Resources page.

I'd also make up a timetable of reaction times ahead of time. For example, the first thing to arrive would be the drones, most likely small flying ones, since they're the fastest and cheapest. If the danger was great enough, some form of astral support may arrive as well. Next would arrive the armed drones (flying or otherwise) to pin the perps down while the living assets got into a position containing the shooter(s).

There's a nifty document here that's all about how they do it in El Paso County, Colorado.

Cool, thats the kind of info I was after, is there any info in the main book for crimes etc for if/when they get caught?

Things like, caught carrying a restricted firearm, not having a SIN, breaking and entering, murder etc?

There used to be crime/penalty tables in SR3. But honestly, it's a moot point. They get caught, they are fucked, doesn't matter if they get 5 years or 20 years, really. Hell, they will probably resist arrest, as all players do, in which case they will get gunned to pieces.

Anyway, IMO, firing an unsilenced weapon in the middle of Bellevue is just plain retarded. The cops are going to take that very seriously. They will first quickly assess the threat - airborne drone, or an astral mage.

They should in theory spot the sniper. SWAT will then be dispatched. The area will be cordonned off and people evacuated/told to stay in their homes. Counter-snipers will take positions, and mages with spirits will stay at the ready. The sniper doesn't really stand a chance, unless he runs. As a GM, you can be leniant here. Make it possible, even a bit easy, for him to escape. For the sake of good gameplay.

At this point, the rest of the team is in no immediate danger. The cops don't know they are there, though they will suspect that sniper may have been overwatch for something. Unless the cop hackers intercept communications between the sniper and the team, they should be ok. However, with cops crawling all over the place, they better finish up their run very quickly and quietly. If they don't, they will get WTFPWN pretty severely.

Anyway, that's how I'd handle it. If the Players are new to shadowrun, though, go easy on them. Show them the full might of the Law, but make it possible for them to get away without a huge ugly firefight which they would lose. Give em a chance to learn. Then make sure they understand it was because firing unsilenced weapons in rich neighbourhoods is bad.

Well this is the funny bit, the sniper is walking around inside a house and just so happened to shoot a couple of flunkys with gel rounds, a couple of his buddys have just been shut in a basement which they can't get out of whilst there is the body of the murdered tenant in the front room. There are a few more team members outside (The group is quite large at 7)

I was a little astonished when he opened fire tbh, I think he may have thought that because he has a camo suit on that he's invincible

I have it all figured out on where I'm going with it I just wanted to check that I wasn't going ott.

First of all, unsilenced gunfire takes only a single hit to notice. Although any police on site will definitely be on the alert and will have called in the shots(if they recognised the shots as sniper shots), they won't want to alarm the rich people by flying drones and bringing in the big guns if none of the rich people made a report, some of these guys may have private skeet shooting ranges on their lawns perhaps. Therefore I'd see if any of the rich guys recognised the shots as gunshots and got annoyed at it. If someone was hurt and a report was made, definitely the big guns will roll out. Until then, the cops will monitor the situation.

In older editions at least most places had PANICBUTTONS which is roughly what they have in those little security phone booth boxes on college campuses except they're in houses etc. Probably trigerably using a comlink these days. Also for higher rated areas I know in the past there have been references to gunfire detectors.

One thing to remember is that SR turns are really fast. Some GMs ignore it, but it would Probably be 30 seconds until an aerial drone is in the area. And longer for the rest of it. Giving runners some time to evade if they can think of a clever way to not get spotted. Of course there is always a chance a squad car with drones is just around the corner.

Couple of other thoughts. Tutori brings up a good point about gun fire inthe area, but a shot gun does sound different than a rifle. Whether the folks in the area would know the differnece is debatable. But four shots fired pretty close together will always send up red flags.

On another point, what the hell is a sniper doing in side a house, much less carrying around a rifle and using it like a pistol or SMG? Those things can be 5+ feet long and weigh a lot more than an assault rifle. They're not exactly intended for clearing hallways and rooms.

Next point, police response in AAA is usually less than 5 minutes IIRC. Drones responding would be a lot faster. Strato-9's are a great frist response, as they have good sensors, and are well armed. If the team is already on the move, I'd think they'd likely follow them out of Bellevue first. if they're in the house, they'd block them in. No sense in letting the potential gun fight go in to other rich people's windows.

As stated before though, if they're new to the game, you may want to cut them a break. For one, a lot of actual sniper rifles have build in 'silencing' devices. Second, they might not know your expectations or view of the game world, and not think much of firing off rounds like that. Educate them. You can be really generous and say the situation doens't make sense, hit the 'Suspensions of Disbelief' button. You could also let them know that firing off like that isn't going to fly, and the Star should be on them in no time. The game isn't ruined by a blown run. Failure happens, and usually it's a good learning experience.

If they really wanna shoot stuff, throw the Star at them. but they will probably lose.Also remember that if they resist arrest and it results in any injuries or deaths of an officer it becomes "Special Circumstances" which usually means maximum penalites. An officer twisting an ankle from arresting them while they struggle can even mean that.

on the flip side, a prison based campaign can be interesting.

If you think the gun fire will alert the cops (Lone Star or a some other private security in the area), then they should arrive in 10+ min, concidering the area, but IMO they ain't faster than that.

Maybe if the runners where very unlucky (meaning GM wants a fight with the police or want them to hurry) there might be a drone near that will swing over and have a look - but remember a hacker/rigger might notice it and hack it.

They will arrive in a patrol car with 2-4 cops, they will then call in SWAT if they think that is needed - in case of several armed and dangerous people such as Shadowrunners it is needed
There will also start arriving more patrol cars, the ordinary police will try to contain the shadowrunners but refrain from entering into a firefight.

If the cops think its needed they will also call in an astal mage, who will arrive in astral within 5 secs of the call.

So add how many minutes you think it will take a SWAT time to arrive to the scene, but 20-30+ mins is most reasonable for Lone Star. They will evaluate the situation and then maybe move in. Should the runners still be around at this time they should get a really hard time.

Also remember most cops wont run into house with a bunch of armed shadowrunners, they will wait for backup.

This is how I GM cops reaction in situations where I haven't pre-planned a response.

I forget which book had it, but there was a list of reactions based on neighborhood rating AAA to Z. IIRC in a AAA like I'm presuming Bellvue is, the first response would be a mage in the astral, quickly followed by a noncombat drone to check things out. Both those would arrive in under a minute. Then there'd be a RRT dispatched if either of the above found anything funny going on (or sometimes even if there weren't). It would take under 2-3 minutes to arrive (this is a AAAzone after all) Finally, there would be arieal surveillance over the whole area in case any on were to try to escape.
Now just reduce responders and increase response time as you go down from AAA to AA to A, b, c, d and of course in a Z zone there ain't no lone star, though other things might respond (gangs, packs of ghouls etc.

The Lonestar response time will be pretty fast. If the players get into a static fight with Lonestar they will ultimately lose due to the ever increasing pile of cops outside.

My approach would be to make it clear to the players that they have made a mistake and that they have a very limited amount of time to get out of there. To do this in game, you could have either a Lonestar officer or a neighbour pop up on the house's trid phone (hey, why not have a face to face phone type system in the house. It's probably not uncommon). It can even pop up in multiple rooms as standard, like phone extensions). If it's a neighbour, have their worried face asking if everything is okay and say that they've summoned Lonestar. If it's Lonestar have them querying for the owner to see if everything is okay. Lonestar would probably want to surprise any intruders though, so I would go with the neighbour. If there's an NPC hacker or anyone on watch nearby, then they can patch in to the team's network and report seeing the Citymaster tearing up the road.

In short, find some way of communicating to them that they have five minutes to get out of their and make them run. Besides, car chases are fun.

New Seattle, 111.

First response should be VERY fast, but exceedingly polite. If one of the characters looks normal and has good social skills they could potentially talk their way out of it. Use of facial recognizers and matching with known occupants of the house should make this social check very difficult. Bets are off if the drone/mage spots the dead resident on the floor. They WILL try to get inside the house no matter how plausible an excuse just to make sure that someone hasn't just shot their wife.

Lone Star has to walk a very fine line in a neighborhood like that. They gotta let the rich have their fun without stepping on their toes while at the same time ensuring everyone's safety.

At the very least a ariel dron arrives and videotapes the house, heat sigs, and the property. A wage slave rigger on the other end would then analyze it. That would take about five minutes. He would probably spot the people out side, the dead body in the front room cooling (via the ppol of blood) and the idiot with the hot rifle. At that point a HTRT would be mobalized probably from Downtown Bellevue taking anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes to arrive with there Ares City Masters and 4 - 5 squad cars.

In Bellevue if someone trips on the sidewalk its a 3 squad car minimum.

Not to mention Drone Support, Magic Support, and then more cops with cars and guns. All of the told "Murder suspects armed and dangerous shoot to kill". Basically if you play it by the book, they are dead with a capital D. The only hope is for those guys in the basement to hide their weapons and say they were kidnaped. If they have SIN's. If they don't have SIN's the cops will arrest them for accessories, if they live to be arrested.

If somehow the runnners all get away, LS will have pics of them up on the news, rewards, tip lines etc. Notariety would probably go up 4 or 5 points.

What about astral recon? Even if not worthy of an astral mage, it might be worth sending a spirit to check things out. Does an astral form need probable cause to "enter" your house?

Yeah, you're right. What am I thinking? Laws are made by mundanes, of course astral intrusion is just like regular trespassing or unlawful entry. (B&E in the case of wards)
Good point about having a low-level ward on a rich house. Well, part of the house, anyway.

I wonder if the OP is even reading at this point.

Anyway exactly what LS does will very from GM to GM. And likely over time. Though much of the advice here is solid, there are whole debates on how much LS has for resources. As to how likely they are to send a spirit to each panicbutton call or how many arial drones are availible and whether they leave combat drones in the air or have to launch them. You might want to work out details yourself. Of course varied based on security rating from AAA and down.

My comment is that since it seems you're between sessions if you happen to be hanging out with a player whose character has some background in city stuff fill them in on how LS works in your game. Then they can have some kinda game plan for when your game resumes.

Oh and don't play too softball. Total team wipes can hurt moral. But if one guy gets taken out typically the other players feel better about their performance since they survived when others didn't. Players also keep their heads in the game a little better after they've seen some negative consequences. At least having seen someone have to burn edge or lose limbs.

Ok thanks for the flurry of suggestions people.

I couldn't say too much yesterday as I knew that some of my runners come on here just to catch up The group are not really newbies quite a few of us have been playing since 2nd/3rd so we are familiar with the SR world, but we all require a little education now and then.

But since that part of the run is done and dusted now I thought I'd come back on here and post what happened and why.

THE LONG VERSION

The team were at the house because the address had been passed to them by Mr Johnson who had kindly requested that they find him "The Key". This might sound really cheesy but please hear me out. The Johnson has explained to the team that he does not have any real idea what they are looking for but he does know that it is some kind of ancient mythological artifact that opens the door to eternal life... a key to the fountain of youth if you will.

So anyway the team did a background check on the guy and found out he was an old man, the only other information on him was that he was recently involved in a road traffic accident that Lone star attended although there were no real injuries.

So they stake out his house for a bit then eventually the mage goes into the house in astral goes all the way upstairs and attempts to go into the basement but he gets blocked. Meanwhile the technomancer has got into the security network and found that none of the alarms have been triggered and none of the motion sensors have been triggered. So one of the braver of the team goes into the house to investigate, and finds that the front door is open.
Gingerly he goes round the ground floor and finds the body of a human male dead on the floor, whilst this man matches the description of the man that lives here he is much younger. There is no obvious sign of death but he has had an eye removed and his left hand, but its assumed that this is after death.

The team then discover why these were removed once they see the basement door which has a biometric reader next to it, the door is slightly ajar so the team go in cautiously as they do so they loose communication with the rest of the team.
The basement seems to be another living quarters and they spend some time searching it but find nothing out of place, meanwhile the guy with the sniper rifle has decided to go upstairs to snoop.
The 3 downstairs find nothing of interest so they go to leave and just as they do so they are confronted by what can only be called a "friggin huge" troll. The troll then begins to ask them where "the key" is and the orc in the group then decides to back chat so the troll gets annoyed by this and decides that maybe they'll be a little more co-operative once they see that he has the better position so he locks them in the basement and tells his goons to search the rest of the house. There were still 3 outside that saw the troll and 8 street dressed thugs enter the house but they were unable to contact those in the basement obviously. The troll of the shadowrunner's group then ran around the back of the house. Meanwhile the sniper elf upstairs has his rifle out and is coming down the stairs just when 3 goons are going up. Well he takes this opportunity to make sure that they don't shoot him by opening fire with his rifle...........

So now you see how they got into this situation

So now the way that I played it last night was that lone star had been called and they were going to be there in around 5 min's, the troll had managed to get the unconcious gangers back into their car and they drove off. The troll then called for backup (He was lone star) so when they did turn up they turned up in force, 6 patrol cars in total. 2 went round the back 4 round the front. 2 of the runners jumped over the wall to the back and one of them was knocked unconcious with stick and shock ammo the other surrender himself. The 3 in the basement were gassed quite happily and the other 2 runners have managed to slink off.
The 4 that were captured have now been released as witness under protection under the custody of the bent lone star troll who wants them to find this key for himself. He has been quit happily falsifying evidence to get them off and of course has taken certain steps to ensure these shadowrunners do not betray him . They are doing the same job as before but they are now working for their freedom, well all but 2 of them are anyway should be interesting to see it play out

THE SHORT VERSION

They went into house 3 got locked in basement, 1 sniper loosed off some shots, lonestar turned up arrested all but 2 and they are now working on the same job but are working for a bent lone star cop for their freedom instead of money

Wow, didn't realise that was going to take up so much space

Nobody monitored external comms to LS HQ? Why didn't the rest of the team bust out the 3 in the basement? Why didn't the runners wipe the floor with the gangers and the team mage/s melt the troll's brain down?

The rest of the team did not know they had been locked in there due to the fact that their comms got severed as soon as they went into the basement (They backed up and re-established contact then told them they were going back)
The runners could have wiped the floor with the gangers but the parts of the team that were not in the house we're quite happy watching from outside.

And the teams mages were stuck in the basement