Furthermore, it got really deep when they decided it would be better to leg it with full knowledge that the fuzz was coming in.

Then shooting at them.

Then running.

Then fireballing them. (Illegal use of magic by an unlicensed mage?)

Then using more mojo to get them out of the way.

Then trying to run again.

Then, when caught, spilt the beans about their way of life. Imagine telling the cops when being arrested "I'm a criminal!".



You can't wash the drek from your hands with more drek. Furthermore, no lawyer is going to touch that case with a ten-foot-pole attached to a twenty-foot-pole.

Jailtime for this can be defined as life, without possibility for parole being a very light sentence.

With that being said, you could always have someone spring them then take the next flight to Canada, or Hong Kong.

Gunshot wounds to the skull are quite recognizable on burned corpses when they are autopsied. A flechete wound would be more so, as it's a high velocity extremely small diameter exit wound. Plus you'll probably have sabot pieces embedded in the head.

I mean, I think that by the time your profession is an urban mercenary who does illegal breaking and entry and probably shoots security guards in the face for money at least some of the time the odd burn victim trucker here or there might complicate things a bit but on the whole should realistically be the least of your worries.

Irrelevant, if he wishes as GM to rule that it can't be used as evidence it's his call.

The amount of real life knowledge used in a game has to vary by group with this, much as it does with issues of guns and the matrix. I know you weren't trying to tell him how to run his game, but you I am simply saying that you can't insist he use this information because it is simply is his game and his group. It is for him to judge based on both what is best for his group and the story, irrespective of RL considerations.

Yes, I could go both ways and I have decided to not go the hard way. The most important reason is that they rolled badly but the game has been fun for everybody so far. There is a reason of incentives that I will address later.

Yes. Good suggestion! I remember that book, I am going to check it out before next run.

@hyzmarca... ... and then they get to fight with the worst criminals in a museum! ... and they have problems with toilets! ... and finally they get to date Sandra Bullock!

Karma. and character building. The most important reason is the latter. This group of players really has problems making interesting characters and the mage and the ork are good chars, have lots of contacts, roleplaying quirks, settled personalities and a connection to the gameworld. Rolling up new chars will waste all that process.
Also I believe a professional criminal who has spent some time in jail is still a credible professional, even if not the most successful. A reputation for not playing with the boys in blue would be an asset in certain circles too. Maybe they will have to get the money to get zeroed again. But that makes good story...

In the above discussion I am with Wounded Ronin. There is no moral judgment in here. The runners are horrible people who shoot people in the face for money. Shooting a person in the face out of anger is not morally commendable but it certainly wasn't out of character. The player running the mage is a certainly nice guy playing a fantasy roleplaying game. I am analyzing the situation in game terms, i.e. what would be more fun for everybody involved including the players while keeping a sense of in-game coherence and at the same time providing good incentives to make a better game later on. I do not feel anything about it. I had a different plan for the run but when the runners screwed it I had the world react accordingly.
Now I do not want the players making new characters who would be so afraid of the cops they would not even try shadowrunning. I also do not want runners so paranoid that they would go to their next B&E like "let's shoot down all witnesses, burn the city block and nuke the area so there is no way they find out anything". I have a good gauge of the level of paranoia / temerity I and the players enjoy most in my games.

As the Gm I get to make up everything, that includes the level of attention the police is paying to details, the media reaction to it, etc, etc.


I really like what kzt and nychuss have added to the discussion from the hard side of the law as well. (am I too nice?)
Some events have transpired too so next is an update an a sketch of what's coming up next.

So far:
The runners got arrested. KE has ritual samples on everyone. The hacker's commlink and her programs were confiscated and are lost. (she has a backup of the programs but the commlink is gone) The ork had his cyberspurs removed and the reflex enhancers inhibited temporarily. The mage is given some psych meds and has a biomonitor/taser attached that may prevent him from casting. (the rules for this I haven't thought but the idea is that the player thinks something bad will happen if he casts a spell so he hasn't tried, the drugs also leave him with a dry paper flavor in his mouth and he is thirsty all the time) -I will probably make casting in jail heavily penalized and with consequences but not impossible, with the need to be stealthy about it or risk a lobotomy.

We had a conversation about what the players want and this is it:
The hacker character will be retired and replaced (the player running her is having
problems scheduling games), the other two want to continue playing with their characters if I can think on how.

The players want to know who was behind the hacking so we decided they will get to play the investigation of the hacking accident. I will handle them the stats of the police officer they had met before who has information on the case and his partner - a hacker- and they will play a session as KE officers. If they can arrest the culprit the runners will get a more lenient sentence. I will let them give the karma they get for RP police officers to their actual characters.

Everybody thinks that the truck driver died in the crash. They have evidence that there was another hacker involved who is being investigated. The mob has sent that lawyer -who the runners had met before- because the runners have some evidence that would complicate things for the mob and they do not want them talking to anybody else. The lawyer has told them that the mob will help them get through jail but that they will owe them a favor.

Next:
There will be a trial. In the trial there will be a prosecutor who will present the case as kzt portrayed it (thank you!) and ask for life sentence. It will not fly. Nobody will mention the dead driver. The prosecutor suspects the truth but would not be able to prove it. The lawyer will convince the jury that the sandstorm was not a lethal spell. The characters will be sent to prison and in there they will be placed conveniently near the framed guy whom they will have to protect. (thank you Riley37!) Two years settlement, maybe probation after a while if they behave well. There will be a gang messing up with them in the joint and maybe a couple of abusive guards. Then fast forward to the end of the sentence. When they get released they would have to try and get the ritual samples destroyed or lost, make some money to replace cyberspurs (they are cheap), get in contact with old contacts (they may lose a couple of the Loy 1 guys) work for the mob a couple times (maybe they make friends with the framed guy or some other criminal) I am considering replacing the lost hacker with another shadowrunner (and a new player) they could meet in jail. Another idea is that the harsh prosecutor -Mr. KZT- may have lost some political chances in his career after losing the runners' case so they could have a new enemy breathing down their necks.

This is about is today. Thank you very much for the inspiration. If you have more ideas please don't be shy. I will probably resurrect this thread in a long while so I could tell you how it played out.

Cheers,

Max

They own the public streets? They own Ares, as it was ares personnel they attacked? They are willing to take the public outrage of releasing a band of known murderers? Quite a special company. . .

As I posted earlier, it's in SOTA: 2064

Depending on the situation they could always provide new identities. Especially if there were some internal politics and someone thought they could be useful in the future.

And who said anything about mass murderers?

You are missing the point. People who let known killers walk get terrible PR. Terrible PR combined with hugely pissing off Knight Errant and the city is bad for business. People who hate your company don't buy your products. Police officers who hate your company tend to be very picky about regulations. And it would be just terrible if the city had to excavate all the roads that led to your parking lots and the shipping and receiving docks for a few months, wouldn't it? (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvonne_Fletcher)

And you did.

Ummm...no one said they would be freed to walk the streets...

I would think if Ares thought they could leverage these guys, they could easily get them out of jail and say they would handle it internally in THEIR court systems. They could easily fake an execution or whatever...this is SHADOWrun and the corps getting a shadow team with that much leverage? Why wouldn't they do it and take advantage of it.

Springing them from one jail to sit in another jail (as far as the public knows), isn't letting anyone walk. I would think that Ares would get very positive PR if they spun it. I mean, after the "20 years in jail" sentence by the courts, Ares swoops in and says, no way, these runners were in our jurisdiction and WE are going to handle this OUR way. Then fake an execution, reap the positive PR and relocate the runners and send them on suicide missions, etc.

As if AAA Corps haven't done worse a million times over...its very plausible, IMO.

The trial could be quite a good role playing session. You could let the runners make some social skill roles to try to gain jury sympathy. Additionally how they handle themselves if they are put on the stand, which they should be for maximum RP fun even though a real defense lawyer would be very reluctant to put guilty clients on the stand, could affect the severity of their sentance.

I remember having seen a picture of a troll sammie whose one cyberarm had been removed at the shoulder, leaving him with only one functional arm.
Used cyberware has to come from somewhere, doesn't it?

That isn't what prison guards would o if they could, it's due to the whole civil rights stuff. So, no I'd expect they'd get peglegs in SR.

That leads to an interseting subtopic however:

Prisons are presumably run by corporate interests, contracted by the 'state' such as it is. Not even a AAA corp could generate enough hardened criminal types to justify the cost of running a prison for their own 'extraterritorial' use.

Now, while a corp might decide to just pegleg some guy, another corp, competeing for that contract would almost certainly start lobbying against them for violating those civil rights (that, for the record, they don't give two figs about either), just to try and scoop up the contract themselves.

So corporations running prisons have to balance the financial rewards of crippling prisoners (reduced cost on guard medical bills, for one) vs the potential for even more expensive legal and PR attacks from rivals.


I expect standard policy would be to leave any not 'weapon' based cyber alone unless the prisoner proves to be a troublemaker (in which case there are other solutions... permanent solitary confinement, VR 'storage boxes'... quiet executions using other prisoners...).

There isn't any value in covering it up. It looks good for Ares to catch murderous street scum killing the citizens of the city. And after the reporters get done the PCs won't recognize themselves in the story.

And you're demanding proof? They are street scum, a taxpaying citizen is dead under suspicious circumstances, and the street scum not only refused to help out the injured citizen but ran when the police showed up, and the street scum had to be brought to justice at great threat to the lives of the KE officers. So what did the criminals have to hide that made them rabbit? Obviously they killed him, probably as part of a robbery.

The only correct response to dropping the soap is to continue showing without it or leave. Picking it up using a fancy double-jointed foot move will just get you beat up as a showoff. Kneeling to pick it up is also out of the question for reasons that shouls be obvious.



This is what being convicted of murder is really like in 2070.