...Or is he having a simple mid-life crisis?

Greetings all. This may not fit in this forum, but it didn't seem to fit in the In Character Forum either, as it is sort of an after action report, so...

I have a great young Player, who is normally a very hard core RPer, but Shadowrun brings out the weird in him somehow. He's running characters in a couple of different campaign "levels" presently and in this one in particular he's got one of his minor leaguers working for his heavy hitter "legend in the making" Runner. This "LitM" wannabe, Captain C-Bucks, or more recently, the Boss Man, managed at one point to capture three, well, astral beings who conform to most of the legends of Quasits (yes, there are legends of these little minor demons in our Shadowrun Universe). This guy, through other actions in the past, is already sometimes being referred to as 'the demon hammer' in some circles and is generally a respected, if eccentric exorcist, among other things. But you see, sometimes the Player that is in control of this guy has these moments of madness.

Yeah, that's the only way to say it, madness. Pity poor Boss Man his Player.

So, Boss Man has three Quasits (well, he thinks they're Quasits anyway and truth be told, they are close enough to being Quasits for descriptive purposes anyway, so...) that he captured a while back and he got this wild assed idea for a way to stroke his ego, and "save these unsaveable beings" all at one go. Yep, that's right, he wants to save the souls of the demons.

Wha, demons? In Shadowrun?

We play the game a bit less meta-gamed than some folks. Even the Mages in our game don't KNOW the whole of it. They use the term free spirits instead of sprites or demons or fae or kellies or what have you when discussing astral entities because that is what is comonly used in the press and among the so called and self proclaimed sophisticated people of the sixth world. But there are differing POVs even in the modern Shadowrun world.

For people with a very religious world view; The Boss Man (who is for all intents and purposes a guy with an edge that might be called True Faith expressed through the lens of his world view in a weird manner) believes that "even demons can change, even they can have their immortal souls redeemed."

The Boss Man: But you gotta go about that one slick! Demons aren't idiots. They know when you are trying to gull them and so for this to have a chance in Hell (pardon the pun) of success, you gotta SEEM to give them something in return for their "willing cooperation" in their saving.

Yes, it does actually start out that weird. And from their it goes down hill FAST! It goes down like a rocket sled on rails.

I'm going to introduce you all to the Player responsible for this madness, Peter, and let HIM try to describe how a so called intelligent "soon to be legendary" major Shadowrunner gets so weirded out that he tries to save the souls of three minor demons over a "reality show", some episodes of which stream live, by, among other things, finding them "stunties" (basically malnourished and purposely under weight dwarven girls who dress up like young school girls and prostitute themselves) to, ahhh, engage in carnal knowledge with, on camera; sort of. ;P

Sooo, without further ado, and with no weaseling out on his part--> Heeeeeeerrrrre'sssss the Boss Man!

The question is, are they really moments of madness, or true enlightenment ?
Captain C-Bucks has always been the guy who was a real attention whore, he bathed in every second that Mr.Johnsons told him they´re pleased. But besides those rare occasions, and a few insider-Runnerfanboys there aint many people that give you the attention he so desperatly needs, in that line of work.
Now, in the 6th world, there are too many things that are so weird, that you can barley top them. Bloodsports, Sasquatch shows, heck - the news will already be enough for you to find something weird.
So, I had to come up with something truly unique, dangerous, attractive, that people couldnt refuse watching as soon as they heard about it =).

I wont state anything about the altered background world, besides that its a lot of fun to play in, and still a grim dark place to spend your afternoons.

When I first captured those 3 things, I didn't really know what to do with them, I'm not the type for aggresive interrogation- and they would have probably enjoyed it anyway. So, I offered them Pizza, and asked them if they really really want to go back from where they came from? Now, they basically are bad boys with the credsticks (mine) to back their image up...My goal beeing to turn them into something better, that brightens this very dark world a bit. But that wouldnt be enough, yes it was eccentric, but it wouldnt catch attention of the "peasants".

So, having a good deal of Nuyen from some lucrative runs on my bank account, I started a project, featuring me, in a reality show, with my 3 new ... friends . They were up for the idea as soon as they heard "pocket money, food..and hookers ". With them agreeing, all that we needed to find was a director that would shoot it, and people open-minded enough to film and edit it. He was found through different contacts etc and the show could begin.

The first part of the first show consisted of our dear demons at a bible lesson with a really religious gang leader I happen to know. Lets just say he´s not very patient , but he brings the message accross.
The second part would be the 4 of us, clubbing and organizing our 3 friends escourt services shall we say. We´ll.. this was all live stremed, so it offered a nice oppurtunity for pretty much everybody thats pissed at me to come get me, which is the wonderful tickle that I needed it to be . Chances of me getting killed in this are slim, although my GM likes to say otherwise . Preparations include a super Platinum Docwagon Contract , a minorleague Security force consisting of 4 Runners (Catshaman, Faceman (my other character), Orc Sam, and a Decker). For signal overwatch I have a decker of my original team, Red, on live overwatch, to make sure the lines are secure. She´s doing all this from her fairlight excalibur - tricked out and unmarked - one of the best deckers you can get around Seattle by now. So its all not that bad, I´ve had encounters with... old friends ... already and survived them . One ran away, the others triggered my Docwagon-Bracelet... .

So all in all , thats my side of the background, I think Isshia will go into detail with the actual events, I wish you all a good read, and hopefully this wil be as funny for me as it is for you.

P.s.: apologiez for typos, grammar and spelling mistakes, I'm not a native english speaker =/.

Greetings
The Cap / Bossman

Yeeesh, our "not a native English speaker" does a better job of communicating in English than most of the guys back home in Southern Florida do.

Anyway, can you say spin doctored? I knew that you could.

The director that ol' C-Bucks managed to scrounge up for this show was a real pip. His latest great cinematic triumph was the nine episodes long "Marilyn Chambers Geriatric Fun Hour" which featured the 102 year old Ms Chambers (Hey, she doesn't look a day over 75!), back to her old tricks with a cast of nice young men of the orc phenotype. With him providing some "ideas" for setting and mood for the shows, as well as shooting locations and a few other things, it was guaranteed to not be for the faint of heart.

Is it not suicide for a guy who has helped piss on people with big ins in mega and or major corps like Federated Boeing, Aztechnology, Gaeatronics and MCT, Mr Johnsons and Trouble Shooters who wouldn't want to give him a smile and a pat on the head, to BROADCAST his location at the beginning of a two plus hour long live program? To add insult to injury, he actually called one of the "Efficiency Experts" he made look bad in the past, a guy with allot of pride and a ton of pull in Gaeatronics, by name. Yep, he called him out by name.

See, he'd gotten cocky because earlier on in the evening he had run in to an old nemesis of his, a sometimes BTL chip dealer, sometime mercenary of a werewolf who just happened on him (no, really, that was unplanned, just wrong place, wrong time) and tried, briefly, and spectacularly unsuccessfully to take his face off and had to hoof it out FAST, dropping a one shot, Y25,000 magical item, to help cover his retreat. After that he thought he was bullet proof...and called out a corporater with lots of money, connections and an old grudge...then he stayed put for hours. Said corporater sent what assests he had to spare, and they, using rubber bullets and a massively powerful contact poison managed to get lucky and drop him as he was getting out of the Toyota Elite he was tooling around in.

Now thankfully, even though he had already dismissed three quarters of his "security personnel" (actually all he had with him was the faceman who is his other character) between the free spirit and the faceman, aided by the soundman and the director, who were also piled in the back of the Limo, the cameraman still dutifully recording the whole thing for broadcast, they were able to drag him back in the car; which immediately got it's tires shot out, but hey, the assets assaulting him were chasing them in a Eurocar Westwind and weren't going to be stopping the comparatively tank weight limo with their butterfly weight sportscar. They had shot out the tires of the limo (who's driver kept making all his rolls) and were setting up to get other assets ahead of the limo when the a Doc Wagon High Threat Response Team (this was in Puyallup after all) in a heavily armored copter made the whole chase moot and spirited him away from the fracas.

Ahh well. Mr. Unbreakable got dropped fast and hard by the tech toys (something I've always loved about shadowrun is that with technology ever expanding, you are never really unbreakable) of the peeved corporater but got out of it with his butt in one large piece so all in all it was a success. His team mates still think he's nuts...but he wants to try it all again...and again, and again. He's thinking thirteen episodes in all, a full Tridio season. Stardom (or well, more notoriety) or a concrete slab await him. Which do you all think it'll be? ;P


Isshia

I'll buy that for a dollar.

Thanks for the first positive comment, please keep them coming and we´ll definitly keep writing!


So back on topic:

Well yeah, the director is ... a visionary shall we say - but what or whom else would you need to shoot such a show? Luckily , although we might have some explicit adult content, I'm not making a Free-Spirit-Porn here, but things that should be covered are covered - and it stays amusing and has a certain degree of...niveau .

Pissing on peoples head can't really be avoided in this job, besides, it´d be half the fun if you wouldnt be able to do it. I dont mind having a few corps like Aztechnology or Gaeatronics pissed at me, they deserve it, because there is wet work and then theres that bunch... (I dont do wetwork, but i understand that this globe would do better without certain people on it). Those coorps have a bunch of exec´s in them that really annoy me, and there was this run where we had one of them locked in his office, shotgun in hand, waiting for anyone to come it. Sadly, or luckily for him, we wasted the C8 we had with us to ... swiftly get through a wall - and nobody of us was willing to run into a firing shotgun. So we had to leave him there, since we were in a hurry - and there wasnt much we could come up with in half a minute.
So while I was doing my show, I happened to meet one of the persons of the response team that worked for him (we took it out in that run), she had become a somewhat better person and we both gave a little shoutout to our very dear old friend.
The only thing I regret about it, even if I was knocked out so quickly by the stuff these guys were using, is that I might have endangered some of our crew. I can just see this fireteam coming "home" to Daddy, whining about Docwagon having saved my ass . Now as much pull and prestige this guy might have within Gaeatronics , his superiours will not like the idea of him being called out by name (I purposefully did not mention the corps name), and me waving into the camera on the next episode - this will get people pissed at me, especially him - but he will loose some of his pull by not killing me^^.

The werewolf... shall we say is a frustrated pain in the ass that I somehow happen to trip across when I feel great already - I made him dance , threatening to give him that last bit of silver he would have needed in that moment , I stole Simsense-Chip-Fakes that were actually BTL from him (ruining buisness that he had with Seoulper rings), and generally I mocked him all I could. No wonder really he´s holding a grudge, but well - he´s not really of my concern since usally I see him running anyways- and I let him know that whenever I can.

The little tech-toys mentioned were uncomfortable, but well - didn't do much more than knock me out . I´ll probably see to it that some of my other teammates will have guest appereances , although they are absolutly against the idea - being all whiny about getting killed. Them being there would pretty much assure though that I dont get killed ... at least not quickly .

Besides all that , imagine the ratings when I fight werewolves, call out exec´s - or getting shot down by top-of-the-line hitech toys =).
Fame baby =))

Greetings
the bossy marvelous Mr. Unbreakable

Speaking for Tom;


IC: Boyo, if you want to hang a huge ass target on that pinhead of yours, that's your look out. My precious derrière ain't gonna get tacked to any corp bully boys wall just so you can go on TriD and brag about the size O your hang down. ---Nails---

I am Bob's raging envy.

IC: If you amateur Siegfried&Roy wannabe would already know how to teleport, we´d have no problem whatsoever doing this...
And theres no doubt whatsoever bout the size of my hang down . - there are agumentations for everything afterall =p .


Ooc: We´ll be keeping you guys up as soon as we have played through the next session - since I visit this topic frequently as you can see - there can't be any spoilers .

And thank you very much for the that comment Pendaric ;D we had a real-life lol =).

Again for Tom;

IC: Buddha Bless Me. Do y'all see what the hill I gotta put up with? Hey, Pope hugger, I've told you again and again and again, the only teleportation you ever gonna see is online or in your Vampire/BTL wet dreams. Drool boy. ---Nails---

IC: Some have it in their pants, some need a Eurocar-Westwind, right tom ?
Besides, werent you the guy that started this whole Tridio-Hype? Afterall you had your face stuffed into a cameralense when you did that ORC spot.
And anyway, what kinda mage are you, not trying to.. invent a few things... eh.. I'm at least inventive at what I do .
C

...and yet again for Tom;

IC: At least I didn't have to pay for what's in my pants. Mine is standard equipment. Yours you got out of a catalog. Also, somehow my doing spots for the ORC laughing and hugging and walking hand in hand with Bethany is kind hard to compare to Ms. Chambers being energetic with underaged boys she lured out of Wilhelm Park. And boyo, inventive is me using a fast expanding wave form from a powerball to topple a car instead of blowing it up, not throwing dwarven hookers in Sailor Moon fig at horny demons. That's not inventive...just perverse. And a sure ratings grabber. Ohh, gawd...this is AC Nielsen's worst nightmare. ---Nails---

IC: the question is where you draw the line - some certain political party would mind less about a 130 year old screwing human boys (if they would´ve been), than over a human and an orc holding hands - especially back then. Besides, I'm not broadcasting Ms. Chambers beedroom footage, even if you´d love a revival of that .
Back then you did get problems in certain areas - because people knew you were with an orc - thats drawing attention of the wrong people too....

And what exactly stops you from just lifting that car up =)?
Are you telling me, that you never even thought about getting a hooker? You didnt mind about tipping some barmaids off after they sat on your lap =p.
Besides that, pervers coming from a guy that once thought about ... painful interaction with a earth elemental ? =p c'mon dont pretend your innocent^^.

xx Eric

and yet again;

IC:

C-Bucks, pay someone to tune up your encephalon, you're thinking is mis-wired again. It was exactly those jokers I was TRYING to cheese off. I was hoping that some of them would come my way so that I could help Darwinize the gene pool some. Not everybody's mommy was a test tube Ahhhhnold.



But the difference was that I wasn't marginalizing anyone, I wasn't using anyone, I wasn't degrading anyone. You know, those girls that got 50Y tips dropped on them after that hairy boy set off the howler, who knew they was going to get used in an even sleazier way than usual, by beings who are the absolute incarnation of corruption, they have feelings too. They ain't just hookers, or stunties, or any other label, they's people too. You seem to conveniently forget that when "the boys start crying to the Boss Man that they ain't getting enough sat-tis-faction."

C, they be the ones winning this corruption/anti-corruption war just by you waging it with them.

My ol' daddy had a favorite ol' saying: "If you lay with dogs, you gotta expect fleas." C, ol' friend, what you gonna get by laying with demons?


---Nails---

IC:
probably stains on my furniture ;D.
Its funny when you talk about stunties being individuals, but when it comes to the 3 of them they´re just junk. Isnt it hypocritical to say these are and those are not?

Well, and I am trying to clear some corp-pools and open peoples minds. Im not saying those guys are angels, but theyre doomed if no one tries to help them... ever.


And I´d rather have those 3 guys "play" with one of the stunties, since I will not have them get more misstreated than ladies in their positions have to be. That means no beating etc - and the only hooker that I brought these guys together with so far - was more the dominant type anywasy . So .. there´s worse that can happen to a hooker than to get tipped off well to please a few 5-year-old sizes things and get paid WELL for it.

I'm not willing to fight wars I dont have to fight, I will not kill things that don't fight me directly. Letting them loose in this city would be a mistake - as you well know. So what I'm stuck with them - and doing the best I can.
Yes I am willing to put my ass on the line for doing something worth while - and if all you see in this are hookers- clean your glasses.

And no saying about dogs from me - since my father was also a testtube and therefore not very talkative ...

Cap

...and again;

IC: Boyo, I know you's smarter than that. Any group is made up of individuals. All groups are. The individuals are what they are but treating any of them a certain way because of what they are labeled is playing the old game by their old rules. No hooker is "junk" just because they're a hooker. If you know the person ahead of time, you can make value judgments based on your knowledge. What you did was to make value judgments based on their job!

C, these are beings not at all like any sentient being out there. They are made, if you're right about their origin, of what might be termed pure corruption, pure deceit, pure evil. They are more like a computer program, albeit a sophisticated one, than like people. They may not even be responsible for what they are, since like a program they were made that way. If they are what you (ok, we) think they are, they don't even have free will. Without that there is no saving them because all they are is sophisticated constructs. It's like getting angry at ICE for wrecking your deck when you get angry at a demon for destroying a soul. It makes no sense. They aren't a person, they're a very sophisticated type O' gun.

No, you don't let 'em loose. Except permanently loose... as in disincorporated loose. You kill 'em, quick, no warning, no time for them to feel it and with no more remorse than you you would have in destroying incoming attacking ICE. Just because the particular designer made this ICE look like a cute fluffy bunny doesn't make it any less of what it is.


---Nails---

IC: and along came an AI....
technically just a program as well

Those things are... disconnected from what they once were conntected with , they are a whole new thing all together. If they´re programs - why not make them all the same? How come they have different tastes, manners, heck - some of them even try to behave better than others (yes, it is to get more money for hookers - but so what)? There´s people that could do worse than that - and just because their origin is different we kill them if they´re demons - and leave them alive if they´re human?

Theres more corruption in some human beings than in those things - and killing them swiftly is not the answer to all bad guys... as much as you´d want it to be..

Cap



Ooc: in about 8 hours or so we will have another gaming session , we´ll fill you guys in on actual events as soon as were done for now, good night =).


edit: sorry, session posponed maybe we´ll be gaming tonight (MET).
And still, hungry for input =) , even negative critisism is more than welcome - just keep it constructive please =).