One of the PCs in my game has just been captured by Aztechnology and I'm trying to figure out what to do next. This PC (Christine) has been hiding from Aztechnology after a run gone bad. Aztechnology thinks Christine kidnapped an important Aztech VIP. This is only partially true. The PCs tried to kidnap this VIP but they failed and the VIP ended up being abducted by a rival group of runners. Christine just had the bad luck of being the only person ID'ed by Aztechnology.

Naturally, Aztechnology sends a team to grab Christine. With the other PCs help, she manages to overpower the Aztech goon squad. But then against Christine's wishes, one of the other PCs proceeds to tie up, torture and execute all the surviving Aztech goons. The PCs are forced to flee, leaving the corpses behind for Aztechnology to find...

Now absolutely convinced that Christine is a dangerous anti-Aztech terrorist, Aztechnology kidnaps a minor NPC Christine knows to use as blackmail. This NPC happens to be infatuated with Christine but the two have no meaningful relationship. However, Aztechnology wrongfully thinks the two are lovers...

Aztechnology then threatens this NPC's life. I thought Christine might mount a rescue mission. Or maybe let him die and feel bad about it afterwards. Instead, Christine surrendered to Aztechnology so he could go free. I was really surprised by that...

So now, Christine is a captive of Aztechnology. Before surrendering, I warned the player about all the possible negative consequences and she accepts them. My question now is what should I have Aztechnology do?

I thought about having the bad guys torture her for information and if she doesn't get rescued in time by the other PCs, she'd be killed. Or maybe Aztech would implant a cortex bomb or use carcerands to compel her to cooperative. I also thought about them using magic (Alter Memory, Influence) to mess with her mind.

Just wondering if anyone out there had any suggestions..

Erm, uh, well.. Crap.

Seriously, surrendering to Azzies? A noble gesture, but also about as conducive to continued existence as trespassing onto MCT property skyclad and armed with a Streetline Special.

Okay, if you want the PC to live, the key here is Mind Probe and the possibility of recovering the VIP or visiting reprisal on whoever bankrolled the job. The Azzies are big on magic and they'll be sure to rip through her li'l mind (and they'd see no need to be gentle) until they find out the information they want. When they find out she doesn't have all the information they need, they may keep her alive for a while so they can keep sifting through her subconscious as they piece more info together on the rival runner team. Of course, they're still pissed at the team and would have information on them due to interrogating Christine, but hey, nobody ever said everyone would come out smelling of roses.

I'd say mind probe, no info, cortex bomb, make her go get the exec back.

Don't forget the criminal SIN and the tissue sample.

They put her in a room, the walls of which are covered with cameras, and there is a small crawler drone with a video camera on it scurrying across the room to get a good angle. On one of the walls is a pair of machetes, the blades of which have been dipped in gasoline and set on fire. She is instructed to take one flaming machette in each of her hands.

A door, on the opposite side of the room, opens. Through it steps a wageslave (Bod 2 Str 2 Agi 3 Rea 3 Log 3 Int 2 Wil 3 Cha 3, Skills: Accounting 4) wearing a bargain-basement business suit.

Suddenly, sound comes from speakers mounted in the wall. An announcer reads off Christine's vital statistics, height, weight, bra size, augmentations, states that she hails from The Shattergraves of Chicago no matter where she actually comes from, and calles her "Machette Maria". The announcer goes on to give the wageslave's very unimpressive statistics, his place of birth, and his real name. He reminds everyone that this fight is to the death with a 10 minute time limit, at which point the room will be flooded with hydrocloric acid, killing both contestants horribly.

Christine has the rather easy task of chopping a human wageslave who is defaulting to 3 Agility in place of Unarmed Combat to tiny pieces with dual flaming machetes. This will continue every day, several times a say, until one unarmed wageslave opponent gets lucky and either kills her or goes the distance (which I suppose isn't really lucky, but his estate will get some prize money). If she kills him too quickly she gets tortured with a pain inducer and told to make it more cinematic next time.

I'd suggest mind probe followed by them being kind of annoyed. I'd expect they would go grab the fixer/Johnson or kill them it it's not easy to grab them, as they want to discourage this kind of thing. And nothing says "don't go there" then fixers who recruit runners against Aztechnolgies getting sent home in 47 seperate mason jars.

After that I can see several options. I'm assuming that you are playing the azzies as keeping their word, which makes bargaining with them useful. I tend to think that torturing and killing prisoners is way over the top and I will tend to have no mercy on anyone who does this. They made it personal with people at Aztechnologies.

However I have a soft spot for players whose characters are willing to do self-sacrificing things because it's what the character would do.

1) Get her to get the other runners together and capture/kill them, assuming she isn't know to be captured. A trade for her going free. Those that they took alive they send after the other group with appropriate incentives. This is a PC win and a player loss, as it's time for Christine to be retired...

2) Kill her and use her knowledge to go after the rest of the characters and kill them. No fair fights, car gets hit by ATGM, sniper shoots them in the head walking out to get the mail, apartment gets pumped full of Seven-7 at night. Making personal enemies with huge powerful corps is bad, and they have to uphold their image too.

3) Don't kill her and use her commlink and senior adept with extended masking and physical mask to meet them and take them out. Then offer them a deal... (including Christine) a deal involving With samples and small pieces of cyberwear... They are now owned by aztechnologies.

4) Seeing how this worked so well, have the azzies go after people that all the other runners care about and offer a deal.

5) Get her to explain how their guys ended up dead, then turn her over to lone star for murder, as her group doesn't sound like the kind of guys who would remove all the trace evidence of the torture and execution, so they can tie her to the scene and have her confession. It gets her out their hands since she doesn't know anything useful. Then they put out large rewards for her teammates, dead or alive if they can't conveniently capture/kill them. And it makes the azzies look law abiding and all that.

Lots of ways to go here.

A few more possibilities (with the goal to keep the character in game):

- Get all the info out of her using magic and technological means, dump her on some prison island, then go after her team mates. Prison Island could be some "We don't care what you do there, we may watch with cameras and tape it though" deal, or some forced labor in the Yucatan.

- Put in a persona fix chip, maybe a sleeper persona, then release her or have her "rescued" by her team or other "runners", then have her attack her team once the persona goes active - or deliver information to capture the rest.

- Alternatively, have her possessed by a spirit/ally spirit, best with masking power, and sent to track her team down, or accidentally/"accidentally" freed, then hooking up with her team.

- Interrogation, trial, sentenced to life, then deployed as forced labor of what kind is needed by plot or NPC wishes, anywhere.

- Used as guinea pig for experimental cyber/bio/gene/nanotech. Extracted by a runner team, or escapes accidentally when a runner team hits the lab. Maybe brainwashed too.

- Sentenced to death, but the prison tasked with executing her has a (shady) side business going on, selling convicts to one or more groups and faking their deaths. Possible groups: Yakuza (for bunraku parlors). Ghoul Nation (for food). 3rd World Nation (for suicide missions). Various corps (for experiments). Vampire order (food).

Yeah, I concur with all the mind probe suggestions...the facts are that her group didn't get the VIP and she didn't participate in the torturing of the goon squad. Does she know anything else that would help the Azzies get their VIP back?

Because of her sacrificing herself, I'd try and turn this into a hire...get the VIP back and they will "forget" the last couple encounters...

What type of character was christine?? Can she handle cyber/bio??

I say the Azzies capture the rest of the team by using Christine as bait. Then the team finds themselves in a room sitting in front of a table next to each other and as they are unblindfolded an Azzie comes into the room carrying whatever body parts of Christine, her eyeballs, an arm, and plops it down on the table followed by an assistant with a breifcase.

Then he can give a speech about knowing that it was not them who really kidnapped the guy thanx to Christine talking. But unless they recapture the guy for the Azzies thats all they are going to get back of Christine. At that point he motions to his assistant who lays out a briefcase or whatever with all the info they have on who actually did do it.

If they ask to see Christine they can be shown a video of her being raped or experimented on but essentially alive. Then the guy can be like "thats going to keep happening every day until we have our man back in our possesion.

On one hand I dont like inflicting that kind of thing on a player but on the other Aztechnologies isnt going to be nice about it. On the third hand though you told her not to be stupid and surrender. Did the team of runners even offer to try and get the guy back in exchange for the guy Christine was trying to protect???

You know what would be great. Did the azzies release the guy yet. It would have been great if they killed the guy right in front of the entire team of runners or just Christine. Then when the runners actually get the guy back they will not want to give up the guy without getting christine back first since they know the azzies dont keep their word. This would give them a chance to backstab the azzies and rescue christine and even screw them over if they rescue the dude the azzies wanted!!

If they successfully backstab aztec and rescue the dude they wanted then he can be super grateful and at the very least pay for Christine to get some killer cyber/bio replacements if not some really cool crap for the entire team.

I dunno, I wouldn't necessarily get too elaborate with the maiming and torture; I've found that as a GM (admittedly, I'm more experienced as a player than a GM) that there's something to be said for portraying the corps as less sadistic and more impersonal, perfunctory and ruthless. I mean, why bother with all that messy and time consuming torture when they could just neglect to feed you and put you on a constant BTL simsense feed set for random painful biofeedback to keep you busy (and your voluntary motor functions turned off...) with no fuss? I mean they're the corps! Why do something elaborate when you can use Mind Probe, shoot the prisoner and then toss them in the company dumpster after (you know, the one that's quite safe from discovery by hobos because this facility practices the apparently legal Zero Zone policy).

Have the player make a new character. Whatever happens to the old one remains a mystery unless/until the players try to discover it. Maybe they just give her a partial lobotomy and put her in a bunraku parlor in Tenochtitlan (good luck finding her), or perhaps they just kill her hand dispose of the body. Whatever - it's a hard world - don't go soft and give her back to the player in any usable form or the Azzies lose their mystique.

Three of my PCs just got captured by Aztechnology after an aborted bum rush of one of their secret labs where 2 other PCs got killed.

I implanted them with cranial bombs, tons of stealth tags, and then PAB programmed them so that they love all Azzie products. NERPS NERPS NERPS.

Now they only purchase Azzie foodstuffs, Azzie clothes, Azzie toilet paper, etc. One player suspects that it had something to do with their recent reprogramming (they've all been to hospital and had stuff removed and doctors told them about altered brain chemistry) but another one is just convinced that Azzie stuff is better anyway and that he'd be buying it regardless of any brainwashing.

Good stuff.

One way to handle horrible brainwashing/torture without your game going to a very dark place, but also without the player saying, "Meh, and then I was tortured or something" is tell them that they're tortured and hit them with some kind of psychological negative quality. You don't want the torture to be a non-event, but you probably don't want to RP through it too heavily, either.
Anyway, she'll definitely have to recover the exec in exchange for the antidote to the carcinerands (or the code to the cortex bomb, or whatever)

Don't be TOO mean, but if you're too nice you trivialize the sacrifice.

I don't know, personaly I see this as the mundane answer to the Runner who asked the Bug for more power and got what he asked for in another thread. If you go soft and easy then you run the risk that the player will forget that this is a dark and scary world where being stupid will get you iced.

I've never been a big fan of the supervillian level of sadistic evil that a lot of people seem to like to portray the corps (especially the Azzies) behaving with.

Typically (when I was still GMing) if the runner was reasonably skilled and established and a corp caught them i'd have the corp mind probe them, get a few tissue samples, and let them go (keeping an eye on them is pretty easy once they've mind probed them to hell and back). There's no point in killing a shadowrunner when they might need someone with their talents and be able to force said runner to do pretty much whatever they want for free.

It gave my players a nice, healthy dose of paranoia (especially if someone hired them to run against that corp again) and at the same time let them keep characters that they really liked. I didn't do this if they did crap like torturing or needlessly killing that corp's employees, but if they behaved in a civilized (for a shadowrunner) manner it made sense to me that a corp wouldn't want to waste talent that they could use gratis somewhere down the road.

I also didn't buy into the whole corporate revenge thing. I figured once a run was over and the McGuffin device was out of the runners hands the corp pretty much washed their hands of the mess (as far as the runners were concerned). I'd even have the corp they ran against start hiring them for jobs. After all, if they're good enough to run against Ares, they're good enough to run FOR them.

Fill them with a personafix, alter them in any way you see fit, (cyber is popular, but I've always been a fan of tattoos anchoring cool spells), and blank out a year or two until some kind of injury or mishap shorts out the personafix and they find themselves in the most awkward situation you can come up with. Not knowing where you are, how long you've been out, what you've done, why you crave combat drugs, and why these people want to kill you should make for good fun all around.

If it were me, they'd wake up in a Rio de Jenario flop house with a bullet near their spine, blood all over their clothes, a half-full predator, and guts cramping up from Nitro withdrawl. They don't speak the language, they don't know anybody here, they have no legal identity, they have very little money, and someone wants to kill them.

That's just if it were me.

Christine is valuable to another powerful entity, who, using their own covert assets inside Aztechnology, arrange to rescue her through a combination of Faces and Hackers instead of Shark shamans and street samurai.

Once this other organization - The CAS government, the Draco Foundation, a rival corporation, take you pick - has Christine, they will compel her to participate in their plot against Aztechnology. Maybe even without her knowledge.

Or, although I think someone mentioned this already, Aztec releases her themselves, but with modifications beneficial to Aztec. Magical manipulation, tracking devices, etc.

Or Aztec might just say to her, hey, you're a hell of an anti-corporate terrorist. Here's some money and an influence spell, go bother our enemies.

My feeling is that I generally agree tht portraying any corp as "evil" is somewhat silly. The management is all very much bottom line oriented, least cost, biggest bang for the buck, keep the budget in line and make the quarter. However, when you get captured by the organization where you just tortured and murdered their friends and co-workers then it's not just business anymore. And provoking a ruthless and powerful organization to anger is BAD. If you want to play "ruthless guerrilla's fighting the azzies" that;s fine, but that wasn't what Christine seems to have signed up for.

However in this case, she isn't really the one they want. They want whoever came up with and carried out the clever plan to kill the azzies, and they want the fixer and johnson who hired them, and they want their kidnapped exec back. If she can give them significant help in doing some or all of these there is the basis for a deal.

And corps are big on the deal. And they will stick to it, as people who get a rep for not sticking to it get a lot less cooperation in the future from the people who learn that you can't trust the azzies to not just screw you.

If she can't or won't give them help in these objectives then something very bad is going to happen to her, as they need to make someone pay....

Thanks for all the suggestions. They've definitely been helpful. Christine's surrender to the Azzies was a pretty poor tactical move but it was a fantastic roleplaying moment and one of the highlights of the campaign. From here, I would like the consequences and subsequent events to be realistic (for the Shadowrun world that is) and let the proverbial dice fall where they may.

So my tentative play is that Aztechnology will start with talking to Christine. Business is business and they don't take it personally. And she has some great skills, so they may even offer her a job... But if she refuses to cooperate, it's Mind Probe time. And if they don't get the information they want with magic, then it's torture time.

Afterwards, they will try either a cortex bomb or carcerands. If she remains unmanageably stubborn, they'll have her disposed.

And simultaneously, we'll have the other PCs working to free her while working against a ticking clock.

Anyhow, I'll see how it plays out and afterwards, I'll update it here on Dumpshock.


-JKL

PS: I have a pair of other PCs (an amnesiac assassin and a crazed cyberpsycho) who would be perfectly suited for televised Aztec death sports, if they were ever to be captured...

I guess its to late, but here is what I would do.

After she gets at the Aztech facility they will get the truth out of her someway, either via magic, torture, or some technological means. The how is not exactly important, except to set the mood you desire for your campaign (ie how bad a bastards are the Azies, and what methods do they favor). At this point they will discover the truth, that she didn't actually kidnap the exec they are looking for. However she is somewhat complicit in the whole affair, and her companions (who tortured and killed their guards) are defiantly on their wanted list. So the coporation is not likely to be forgiving (if they ever are).

The most obvious way to run with it then is to implanting her with Carcarnads and/or a Cranial Bomb and force her to retrieve the exec for them. After all she helped cause this problem. If she is succesful they will disarm the bomb/giver her the antidote/release her friend. This obvious however, so what you need is some kind of hook. Some kind of EXTRA way the corp can betray her. I haven't though of a dynamite way for this to happen yet, but here are some ideas of what they could do to betray her after the run is succesfuly completed.

#1. She secretly has a homing beacon/material link so the Azies show up to ice/capture her after the mission is succesful.
#2. The don't detonate the bomb/deliver the carcarnads, but they do trigger some other kind of revenge device/poison that gives her some sort of negative quality (or maybe stat-lost).
#3. My favorite, they deactivate any poison/bomb and release her friend. HOWEVER her friend has been brainwashed to hate her/secretly betray her/kill her. And has optionaly been given the cyber/bio/magic enhancments to make this possible.
#4. Blood magic something. Don't know what. But the Azies are always using it for something it seems...

Yeah, GMing becomes a bit easier in general once you embrace the power of Mind Probe as a useful tool for powerful NPCs. Suddenly the whole question of "Why should the corps believe a thing that comes out of the runner team's mouthes?" is easily answered with "Because their Security Mage just molded the rigger's mind like it was silly putty."

Hrm, yeah, this isn't that other game you know. The corps aren't drow. At some point a suit is just likely to order some company men to cap her rather then install a bunch of cyberware into her friend for an elaborate betrayal. After all, the last thing they need is another cost overrun on the security budget.

Forcing her to do more is smart economics. Inflicting extra harm is a luxury. Besides, I think it'd be a stretch to call what people have been suggesting "making friends".

As far as sheer vengefulness goes, I'd generally rank the Azzies slightly below MCT, actually. MCT is in bed with the Yakuza and they're not really big on half measures and showing weakness, as their zero zone policy can attest to. As for the Azzies, remember that a lot of their reputation comes from their extreme secrecy and the seriously twisted shit they've had a hand in when it comes to some of the darker regions of the ongoing Sixth World metaplot, but that takes place over the heads of the average runner. Note that I don't really award them any extra "vengeance points" just for using blood magic, though either. Ripping someone's heart out to fuel ritual magic certainly isn't nice, but it doesn't actually render you any more dead than if you get greased by a Renraku Red Samurai detachment. I guess you could say I just think of the ritual slaughter of your worst enemies as being the megacorp equivalent of using every part of the buffalo.

The hit squad make sense because they really want the VIP back. Security depts that can't protect VIPs are good targets of budget cuts.

She's useful because she's the only link to the rest of the team (including the ones who came up with and carried out the plan to tourture and kill azzie employees), to the fixer that recruited her team to kidnap an azzie VIP and the johnson who hired them and possibly to the team that actually succeeded.

As she didn't actually kill them it's business. If she won't give the azzies what they want business is likely to require her demise. Somebody has to pay, and she's certainly convenient. Videos of her being eaten alive by devil rats can serve certain useful purposes too.

If she does give them what they want, business is likely to require the demise of a significant part/all of her team. It's also personal with them. So sending out a series of hit teams with very detailed knowledge of the team makes perfect business sense if it's not more important to get the VIP back. Waxing the johnson and fixer is just a general and semi-public "don't screw with us" message, which is good business practices.

It's generally very good to have a rep that you actually keep your word. It means that you have many more options to deal with runners in the future. Captured or desperate runners often have very useful information and contacts.

Of course, the fact that Aztechnology may have made a deal doesn't mean that, ala "Prince of Sparta", certain members of Aztechnology security might not choose to spend a few days on vacation laying on a rooftop with a sniper rifle waiting for the guy who killed their friends to come out...

Something I mmay try
1. Mindprobe her, Discover she hasn't got what they want and is not the one who actually killed their goons
2. take ritual sample
3. Erase memory of taking ritual sample
4. Release AFTER a good beating aand saying don't cross us again or we rip your heart out
5. SCRY on her
6. She meets up with other PC's including the one who tortured and killed their men
7 . Big Blood spirits manifest and rip the guilty party into tiny pieces
8 Blood spirits deliver a message "She has atoned ,You have not , Bring back our Exec of Join him in eternal torment Bwa Ha Ha"

By the way, don't forget that Aztechnology isn't a single entity. It's made up of tens of thousands of individuals, divided into hundreds of different subsidiaries, departments, sections, and so on. So Christine could become the prize in an internal rivalry of some kind.

So what happened?

We're not going to be playing again until after Christmas so nothing has happened as of yet but I'll keep you guys informed.

My plan is to go into it with an open mind and without any particular goal in mind (i.e. The character must live or The character must die) and let the dice fall where they may.

You can make a case either way - mid-level manager intercepts captured runner, installs command software/brainwashes and turns her loose as an "ace in the hole" scenario.

Lacking any other critical input, whether or not the player wants to continue the character may be the deciding factor.

-Siege

This is an old topic but I thought I would update people with eventually happened. I ended up doing nothing exciting but I did give the player multiple ways to get out Christine out of trouble and when before she refused to back down, I made sure she knew and understood the the likely consequences of her actions.

So the Aztechnology Johnson who was holding Christine is all business and has no personal animosity against the character. Sure, some of his men are dead but he cares more about his mission (which is to recover the kidnapped Aztech exec) than their lives. In fact, he actually tries to recruit Christine to work for him since he is impressed by her strength of will, plus she happens to be magically active and has a good rep in the shadows.

But Christine rejects the offer and refuses to help Aztech. So she is then questioned. It's friendly at first but over several days, it becomes more hostile as Christine refuses to divulge anything. Getting impatient for information, the bad guys eventually Mind Probe her but Christine actually succeeded in resisting initial attempts.

They then resorts to violence and Christine spends a few weeks being tortured and raped. Eventually, her friends manage to win her release by bartering with Aztech. They don't have the VIP but they have valuable data and artifacts which Aztechnology agrees to accept. So Christine is released, but only after being implanted with a cranial bomb...

-jkl

Hm... too late to add some hidden "sleeper" personafix, or some deeply-buried psychotrope-ICE induced personality that works for Aztechnology, informing them of anything the team does against them?

I would have had them at some point threaten her with burning out her magic. Or parade her friend (real or illusory) out infront of her and threatened them with physical harm. She obviously cared about said NPC, so why not use him/her in such a way?