Given that there was at least a moderate amount of interest in my idea in my idea to do a do a blog about the development and running of an SR adventure, I'm starting this one to chronicle the development of the adventure I'm working on right now. (Original post of the idea here)
The Big Picture
For those of you running an entire Shadowrun "campaign" you should always attempt to have events follow a logical sequence of actions. Many SR adventures and campaigns happen "in front of" a backdrop of events happening in the world around the players. Some of which they will be able to affect and some of which they may not. The overall goal is to make the world feel "alive" for your players rather than simply a place to run their adventures in. In my particular case, I am running a campaign over the events of Year of the Comet. Although this is an SR3 campaign book I've simply back-ported the rule-set of SR4 into the SR3 timeline. Certain essentials to the SR4 rules (like the Wireless Matrix) I've have brought back into this timeline, while other things (most nanotech, and genetech) I have dropped out of the world because it hadn't been invented yet in the timeline. The campaign is still in the early part of the Year of the Comet timeline. Haley's Comet is not yet visible to the naked eye, but the megacorps that are part of the "Probe Race" (to be the first one to send a probe to make contact with the comet) are furiously sending shadow assets at each other in order to get ahead. These events provide an excellent backdrop for players to be on the "front lines" of this battle between corporations and provides a ready-made "big picture" reason for corps to be sponsoring runs against each other. Having a reason for corps to send shadow assets at each other is a vital component in making the world seem more "real" and "alive" to your players.
The Lead Up
So, along the vein of continuity, the current run I'm planning has its roots in what has come before. The players are in Seattle and have previously done 2 missions relating to the comet probes. First, they shadowed a man that Ares had employed as a consultant on their probe project while he met with Federated-Boeing officials in Seattle. Ares was concerned he may leak probe info to F-B. The climax came when the man was suddenly kidnapped (extracted) by forces unknown while under observation. Their Johnson order him rescued immediately in order to protect the information he had. Although logic dictated that F-B extracted him for the info, the runners' linchpin tip on his location appear to come from a F-B source. On their second mission they were ordered to shadow a German astrophysicist who was suspected to be working on one of the German company's probe projects (Saeder-Krupp or Proteus AG). The players followed the man while he was on a "working vacation" at Cougar Mountain Ski Resort in Seattle and managed to pick up a few tidbits of information. In the end they manage to break the most surprising info of all: Saeder-Krupp was launching their probe that day. A hasty entrance into the mark's condo (and tangle with his security force lying in ambush) allowed them to trace the launch location of S-K's probe and send the info to their Johnson. Two days later, the headline news was that S-K's probe had been "accidentally" destroyed during a "routine" Ares orbital weapons test (as described in the YotC sourcebook).
Full Version: Three-Data Monty
The Lead Up (con't)
After that incident the Ares Johnson was finally able to convince his superiors to allocate him a large budget and untie his hands as far as planning operations against probe rivals in Seattle. Ares has vowed not to be caught flat-footed again. The next 3 runs will all be targeted at gathering information about, and sabotaging the probe being constructed by the Shibata/Federated-Boeing/Aztechnology joint venture probe: Kepler (this probe venture is described in the YotC sourcebook).
So, what's the point/thinking behind all this? Corporations do not sponsor runs against rivals without a reason. Shadowruns are dangerous, expensive operations. Corporations are always watching their bottom line, so there's no reason for them to send shadow ops at rivals unless they believe it will improve their bottom line; unless they think they can make an acceptable Return on Investment (RoI) for the run. In my particular case, the first corp to have their probe make contact with the Comet will score major public relations points, not to mention possibly valuable data. Therefore, all corps involved are willing to spend heavily in order to win the race. In my case, Ares realized they almost blew it with the S-K probe, and now they are not taking their opponents too lightly, even the underdog Kepler probe. Having this kind of solid background for a run helps in planning the details of a run as well as helping you (as the GM) improvise during a run. Players will often do things that the GM doesn't anticipate and often they can veer way off the "script" of the run. A GM that has a solid idea of the background for a run, of what the various "power players" are doing and why, can improvise more effectively and maintain the illusion of a living world.
For example, say you (as GM) design a run that includes a part where the players are to intercept a courier while in transit from one place to the next. Now say that for whatever reason, your players decide they aren't going to intercept the courier at the time or place you thought they would/should, or perhaps they roll really crappy and fail to catch the courier. Your run notes continue on assuming that the players succeeded, so now what do you do? If you have properly designed what is going on "behind the scenes" of the run you should be able to improvise and continue and give the players a chance to still complete their mission (although it may be more difficult now). Where was the courier going? What was he carrying? What was going to happen when he reached his destination? Perhaps you decided the courier was carrying a illegally-obtained telesma from Amazonia and is taking it to a secret research facility so magical experiments can be performed. Now that the players missed intercepting the courier, they'll want to find out where he was coming from, and where he was possibly going. Since you know that the package was smuggled out of Amazonia, you can give the players a clue when they get in touch with their contacts. From there you can lay out a few quick "investigation" encounters where they trace the destination of the courier to the secret research facility. Now the run can continue with the players now having to break into the facility. See how that "behind the scenes" planning helps? That sort of planning can help with little things too like Legwork. If you know who are the players involved in the run and what's going on behind the scenes than you can give reasonable, and meaningful Legwork clues to reasonable inquiries by your runners and everything will seem to tie together. All of these things go into making the SR world seem real and alive.
After that incident the Ares Johnson was finally able to convince his superiors to allocate him a large budget and untie his hands as far as planning operations against probe rivals in Seattle. Ares has vowed not to be caught flat-footed again. The next 3 runs will all be targeted at gathering information about, and sabotaging the probe being constructed by the Shibata/Federated-Boeing/Aztechnology joint venture probe: Kepler (this probe venture is described in the YotC sourcebook).
So, what's the point/thinking behind all this? Corporations do not sponsor runs against rivals without a reason. Shadowruns are dangerous, expensive operations. Corporations are always watching their bottom line, so there's no reason for them to send shadow ops at rivals unless they believe it will improve their bottom line; unless they think they can make an acceptable Return on Investment (RoI) for the run. In my particular case, the first corp to have their probe make contact with the Comet will score major public relations points, not to mention possibly valuable data. Therefore, all corps involved are willing to spend heavily in order to win the race. In my case, Ares realized they almost blew it with the S-K probe, and now they are not taking their opponents too lightly, even the underdog Kepler probe. Having this kind of solid background for a run helps in planning the details of a run as well as helping you (as the GM) improvise during a run. Players will often do things that the GM doesn't anticipate and often they can veer way off the "script" of the run. A GM that has a solid idea of the background for a run, of what the various "power players" are doing and why, can improvise more effectively and maintain the illusion of a living world.
For example, say you (as GM) design a run that includes a part where the players are to intercept a courier while in transit from one place to the next. Now say that for whatever reason, your players decide they aren't going to intercept the courier at the time or place you thought they would/should, or perhaps they roll really crappy and fail to catch the courier. Your run notes continue on assuming that the players succeeded, so now what do you do? If you have properly designed what is going on "behind the scenes" of the run you should be able to improvise and continue and give the players a chance to still complete their mission (although it may be more difficult now). Where was the courier going? What was he carrying? What was going to happen when he reached his destination? Perhaps you decided the courier was carrying a illegally-obtained telesma from Amazonia and is taking it to a secret research facility so magical experiments can be performed. Now that the players missed intercepting the courier, they'll want to find out where he was coming from, and where he was possibly going. Since you know that the package was smuggled out of Amazonia, you can give the players a clue when they get in touch with their contacts. From there you can lay out a few quick "investigation" encounters where they trace the destination of the courier to the secret research facility. Now the run can continue with the players now having to break into the facility. See how that "behind the scenes" planning helps? That sort of planning can help with little things too like Legwork. If you know who are the players involved in the run and what's going on behind the scenes than you can give reasonable, and meaningful Legwork clues to reasonable inquiries by your runners and everything will seem to tie together. All of these things go into making the SR world seem real and alive.
The Hook
Now that the context and lead up are in place, it's time to start designing the events of the run itself. Generally when planning a run I start with what I call a "hook." The "hook" is a mental image I use to start to construct ideas around. The hook then generally becomes the centerpiece of the run in some form: be it the target of the run, the main opposition, or the climactic last encounter. For example, I may get a cool mental image of my players in a vehicle speeding down a freeway firing their guns at pursuing vehicles while dodging traffic. I would then proceed to construct a run where that scene takes place, probably as the final climax of the adventure. I would then work backwards decided "what lead up to this point?" Generally, I find it easiest to plan the climax of a run first and then backtrack to the events leading up to the run. Another mental image could be a hulking Troll with red cybereyes wielding some sort of nasty melee weapon such as a ball and chain, or a combat axe. I might then construct a run where that Troll features as a prominent NPC opponent for the players that they must overcome. Using mental "hooks" like this can help your runs have more excitement and seem more unique than "just another datasteal" or some such.
In the case of this particular adventure the image came to me while I was doing my background research. I knew I wanted this adventure to be a data steal of some kind about the Kepler probe so I was reading about the project in Year of the Comet. The information there said that the probe was a joint venture between three different companies and that is when the mental hook came to me. I imagined a game of three-card monty (or the cup and ball game) where the cards are shuffled and the player has to bet and pick the correct one. What if the finding the data they needed on the probe was like playing a game of three card monty where each of the corps involved was a "card" that got shuffled? Instead of shuffling cards its like the data is what's being shuffled, so it's like a game of Three-Data Monty (hence the name, cheezy I know). Of course, there's nothing saying that the players can't break into all three just to be sure, but it might have to be done on a tight timeline (like in a single night), and they may have to split the team in order to hit every facility. Now, I have a hook that I can start building around; that acts as a general "theme" while I'm designing the run.
From here I break the run down into a series of scenes. These are generally demarcated by location or timeframe. My preliminary thoughts are to have 5 scenes for this adventure:
1. The meet with the Johnson
2. Planning and legwork for the run.
3. Hitting a Shibata facility (of some kind)
3. Hitting a Federated-Boeing facility (of some kind)
4. Hitting an Aztechnology facility (of some kind)
Now that the context and lead up are in place, it's time to start designing the events of the run itself. Generally when planning a run I start with what I call a "hook." The "hook" is a mental image I use to start to construct ideas around. The hook then generally becomes the centerpiece of the run in some form: be it the target of the run, the main opposition, or the climactic last encounter. For example, I may get a cool mental image of my players in a vehicle speeding down a freeway firing their guns at pursuing vehicles while dodging traffic. I would then proceed to construct a run where that scene takes place, probably as the final climax of the adventure. I would then work backwards decided "what lead up to this point?" Generally, I find it easiest to plan the climax of a run first and then backtrack to the events leading up to the run. Another mental image could be a hulking Troll with red cybereyes wielding some sort of nasty melee weapon such as a ball and chain, or a combat axe. I might then construct a run where that Troll features as a prominent NPC opponent for the players that they must overcome. Using mental "hooks" like this can help your runs have more excitement and seem more unique than "just another datasteal" or some such.
In the case of this particular adventure the image came to me while I was doing my background research. I knew I wanted this adventure to be a data steal of some kind about the Kepler probe so I was reading about the project in Year of the Comet. The information there said that the probe was a joint venture between three different companies and that is when the mental hook came to me. I imagined a game of three-card monty (or the cup and ball game) where the cards are shuffled and the player has to bet and pick the correct one. What if the finding the data they needed on the probe was like playing a game of three card monty where each of the corps involved was a "card" that got shuffled? Instead of shuffling cards its like the data is what's being shuffled, so it's like a game of Three-Data Monty (hence the name, cheezy I know). Of course, there's nothing saying that the players can't break into all three just to be sure, but it might have to be done on a tight timeline (like in a single night), and they may have to split the team in order to hit every facility. Now, I have a hook that I can start building around; that acts as a general "theme" while I'm designing the run.
From here I break the run down into a series of scenes. These are generally demarcated by location or timeframe. My preliminary thoughts are to have 5 scenes for this adventure:
1. The meet with the Johnson
2. Planning and legwork for the run.
3. Hitting a Shibata facility (of some kind)
3. Hitting a Federated-Boeing facility (of some kind)
4. Hitting an Aztechnology facility (of some kind)
Well, the first session of this adventure is scheduled for this Friday, so I better get my butt in gear and finish planning it. Fortunately for me, I had one of my "eureka" moments where the run suddenly coalesced in my mind and I'm well into the detailed planning of the run.
Tweaking the Targets
For awhile this run seemed to bland to me as I started to look at the details. It looked like it was just going to be the same thing x3: break into corp office and download some data from the computer. I didn't want the run to be that repetitive so I started at how I could add some variety. My first thought was to give some variety to the target locations, not just have them all in offices. Since this run focuses on threes (3 corps, 3 targets) I thought of putting each target at a different location: a home, a factory, and an office. That seemed to add some variety of things to me, but I still wanted some more variance than just 3 different sets of data. Well, one of the other common things runners take when stealing R&d is to steal a prototype as well as data. Stealing a prototype for the whole probe seemed kinda silly, but maybe they were creating a prototype for a part of it or one particular system. Just to back-check my idea, I looked up the entry on the Kepler probe in Year of the Comet and read something that I had forgotten about: the Kepler is acting as a carrier for a series of smaller drones that will collect the actual probe data. Ah ha! So, stealing the prototype of one of these drones would be entirely plausible. So that means 2 sets of data, and 1 physical prototype. I would still like the targets to be 3 different things (going with the three's theme), but the only thing I could think of was a person, and I already have an extraction planned for the next run, so I'll have to table that idea for now. In keeping with my "tight timeframe" idea, I decided that the opportunity to hit all 3 targets will expire after a single night. The runners only have from the time of the meet until 8am the next morning to hit as many targets as they can.
Detailing Scenes
As I mentioned before, I find it incredibly helpful/intuitive to break the run into a series of scenes. Each scene in a run has its own purpose and "feel" to it, but each should contribute to the overall run in a meaningful way. In the case of this run, it naturally splits itself up into scenes, so that wasn't a problem. To recap, the general feel or "hook" that I'm going for in this run is: multiple datasteal targets that all must (or can be) hit during a relatively short period of time. After thinking about these scenes as a whole and how to lay them out, I see that the run will flow most naturally if I allow the players to choose if and when they are going to hit the various targets. So, each target is a scene but they can be done in any order, but there are some fixed-time events to take into account. I had previously decided on 3 different locations, and 3 different targets so now all that remained was to assign each to the target corp. I decided to put the "home" location with Shibata Construction & Engineering since they probably don't have a presence in Seattle. The "factory" target will be the drone prototype, and Federated-Boeing does a bunch of manufacturing in Seattle so they're an easy pick for the target. Finally the "office" defaults to Aztechnology, and I suppose that means the runners will be breaking into the AZT Pyramid in downtown Seattle. Oh boy.
Tweaking the Targets
For awhile this run seemed to bland to me as I started to look at the details. It looked like it was just going to be the same thing x3: break into corp office and download some data from the computer. I didn't want the run to be that repetitive so I started at how I could add some variety. My first thought was to give some variety to the target locations, not just have them all in offices. Since this run focuses on threes (3 corps, 3 targets) I thought of putting each target at a different location: a home, a factory, and an office. That seemed to add some variety of things to me, but I still wanted some more variance than just 3 different sets of data. Well, one of the other common things runners take when stealing R&d is to steal a prototype as well as data. Stealing a prototype for the whole probe seemed kinda silly, but maybe they were creating a prototype for a part of it or one particular system. Just to back-check my idea, I looked up the entry on the Kepler probe in Year of the Comet and read something that I had forgotten about: the Kepler is acting as a carrier for a series of smaller drones that will collect the actual probe data. Ah ha! So, stealing the prototype of one of these drones would be entirely plausible. So that means 2 sets of data, and 1 physical prototype. I would still like the targets to be 3 different things (going with the three's theme), but the only thing I could think of was a person, and I already have an extraction planned for the next run, so I'll have to table that idea for now. In keeping with my "tight timeframe" idea, I decided that the opportunity to hit all 3 targets will expire after a single night. The runners only have from the time of the meet until 8am the next morning to hit as many targets as they can.
Detailing Scenes
As I mentioned before, I find it incredibly helpful/intuitive to break the run into a series of scenes. Each scene in a run has its own purpose and "feel" to it, but each should contribute to the overall run in a meaningful way. In the case of this run, it naturally splits itself up into scenes, so that wasn't a problem. To recap, the general feel or "hook" that I'm going for in this run is: multiple datasteal targets that all must (or can be) hit during a relatively short period of time. After thinking about these scenes as a whole and how to lay them out, I see that the run will flow most naturally if I allow the players to choose if and when they are going to hit the various targets. So, each target is a scene but they can be done in any order, but there are some fixed-time events to take into account. I had previously decided on 3 different locations, and 3 different targets so now all that remained was to assign each to the target corp. I decided to put the "home" location with Shibata Construction & Engineering since they probably don't have a presence in Seattle. The "factory" target will be the drone prototype, and Federated-Boeing does a bunch of manufacturing in Seattle so they're an easy pick for the target. Finally the "office" defaults to Aztechnology, and I suppose that means the runners will be breaking into the AZT Pyramid in downtown Seattle. Oh boy.
Well, our game host's kid got the Chicken Pox so our Friday session got postponed. That gives me some time to finish posting my thoughts as I developed this run.
Scene 1 - The Meet and Legwork
I'm keeping this section purposefully short for now since the details of the run to follow will likely change what is said by the Johnson in this initial scene. However, at this point I do decide on a few "parameters" for the run that may affect how the players approach it. First off, the players can hit any number of the three targets that they want, but the Johnson is going to be paying per target. Secondly, he wants the information bad enough that he doesn't really care how they get it, however the info is much more valuable if it can be retrieved silently, so the team will get a 50% bonus if the info was retrieved in such a way that the owners do not know it was stolen. I'm expecting 5 players on this run, so I "eyeball" the reward at
25,000 per piece of data retrieved (5,000 per runner) which goes up to 7,500 per runner for doing it "silently." With three pieces of data the reward per runner will range from 5,000 to 22,500. This means there will be strong incentive for them to go for all 3 targets, and attempt to do it quietly.
Target 1 - Shibata Manager
So, this target goes with the "home" theme from before. However, instead of having the target be a "home" I decided that it will just be a person and the run can occur either in that person's home or somewhere else. So, this target will be a Project Manager that Shibata Construction & Engineering sent to Seattle to work out a detailed plan for the final stage of the Kepler probe project. He carries with him some detailed reports on the state and future direction of the probe project and has taken great precaution to keep them secret. Back in my earlier days of running Shadowrun, I used to design runs with a problem/obstacle and then design the solution to that problem. I would essentially stonewall all other player plans until they got to the one I was thinking of or had prepared for. This is a bad way to do things; players feel like they don't have true control. So now, although it is much more work on my part, I simply develop the problem in as much detail as I can, then let the players come up with their own solution. This allows for much more player freedom and I have found causes much more memorable moments in the gaming session as players come up with plans that I never would have anticipated. So, in order to facilitate that sort of player freedom I need to plan out where this manager is going to be for the entire timeframe of the run. Then the players can simply pick their own time.
So, I'm thinking the "meet" with Mr. Johnson will happen sometime around 6pm, with the manager leaving early in the morning say: 6:20am. First this manager needs a name: Ikara Hyru - I'm not great with names, especially Asian ones, but its sounds Asian to me. So, he's in Seattle right now, and will be leaving via suborbital to Japan early in the morning. Looks like there are 3 major times that the players can attempt to get their info: at his house, in transit, and at the airport.
Home
Federated-Boeing is not stupid. They know this probe project is a chance to compete with the "big boys" in the corporate world, as does Shibata C & E, so neither are going to be callous with their security. That being true, F-B will most likely offer to house this visiting manager in "Boeingville." This location is briefly described in New Seattle as a high security, private, gated community in Everett. Mr. Hyru has an apartment there that F-B loaned to him while he was on business in Seattle. They also threw in a personal bodyguard for him. So, Mr. Hyru has a personal bodyguard who is watching his apartment 24 hours a day. This apartment is in "Boeingville" which is a walled, private community, with well-armed guards on duty 24 hours at all the entrances. The area is heavily patrolled by F-B security personnel as well as drones. All people in the area have their SIN's verified as F-B employees or visitors that are authorized to be there. They will respond quickly and with force to any intrusion. Although possible, this would be the toughest place to attempt to get the data from Hyru.
Transit
Hyru is flying internationally so he will want to be at the airport plenty early. So, it seems reasonable that he'll leave about 3 hours before his flight: 3:30am. He will be taken to the airport by an F-B provided limo, accompanied by his bodyguard. The route goes south through Everett and Downtown Seattle to Sea-Tac. For extra measure, I'm saying that F-B has a second team in a car following the limo for extra protection. This is a VIP from a foreign corporation, and they want to make a good impression. Given this is very early in the morning, the traffic should be light so I'm saying it takes 60 minutes to go from the apartment to Sea-Tac. Again, this time isn't favorable for the players. Any attempt on the vehicle while it is in transit will almost certainly end in a "messy" extraction of the data including a fight with F-B security personnel somewhere in Downtown Seattle where security is ultra-tight (Lone Star will respond in force inside of a minute or two). The players will probably be smart enough not to attempt anything here.
Sea-Tac
Hyru arrives at the airport at 4:30am and immediately proceeds to the International terminal for Asian departures to check-in for his flight. Only his bodyguard accompanies him into the airport. Once in line at security the bodyguard will loiter around, growing more bored (and less attentive) while Hyru waits in line and then proceeds to go through terminal security. In total it will take him 52 minutes to clear security and enter the terminal. Once Hyru is in the International terminal the F-B bodyguard will leave, his work is done. So, Hyru will be alone for just over an hour in the terminal waiting for his flight to board. He will do a series of normal activities during that time such as reading the news, getting breakfast, and going to the washroom. During this time he is most vulnerable, even though Sea-Tac security is no slouch. First, the players have to get into the airport, which does a cursory check (rating 2) for weapons. Anything above pistol size will likely be detected. Second, they'll need to get into the International terminal. Security at the terminal is much tougher. A Rating 5 MAD will scan everyone going in for weapons or cyberware. All SINs and Permits will be thoroughly checked (Rating 5). Also, no one gets in without a ticket (duh). Purchasing a round-trip sub-orbital ticket to Japan will cost 4,000 (half that for one-way). If they ask for a refund before the flight leaves they'll only get 50% of it back (last minute cancellation fee, natch). Hacking a ticket can be done (also not easy): the airport ticket system is on a System 5 Firewall 4 node. The ticket database is Encrypted (rating 4) with an IC program constantly watching it for signs of tampering (Rating 4 Agent with Analyze 4). Any intrusion that is spotted will trigger an Alert and a Security Hacker will log in next round to investigate. As a precaution, all tickets will be temporarily invalidated and each one manually checked for validity by the Security Hacker. Magical security is limited to patrolling spirits and projecting mages. Active spell effects will only cause an alarm to be trigger if they are suspicious/dangerous (any Combat spell, Invisibility). Hyru will report any attack on himself or overtly suspicious activity to Sea-Tac security. Security personnel will first attempt to use non-lethal methods to capture assailants, but will respond to lethal force in kind.
Hyru's Data
When they actually get down to retrieving the data, they'll hit some more obstacles. First, Hyru's public Commlink which does broadcast his ID with his plane ticket and such, and appears to have some "work" information on it. One hit on an Intuition test will reveal that the data seems unnaturally "bare" and is probably all "planted." Hyru's "real" work Commlink is implanted and running in Hidden mode: System 4, Response 3, Firewall 4, Signal 4, Stealth 4, Analyze 4. Winning a Computer + Analyze vs. System + Stealth of the node will reveal a hidden link between the public Commlink and the hidden one (a EW + Scan (4) test will also reveal the Hidden node). Once in the Hidden Commlink, a search will still not reveal the files but only an Access Log entry indicating that they were transferred via fiberoptic cable port to an external, cyberware, data storage device: a Data Lock. The Data Lock is not wireless so the players will have to physically locate it on his body, hidden behind a false nipple (Perception Threshold 4). Then they'll need to physically connect to it via cable. The device itself must be hacked (Rating 3 all around), then the Encryption on the data cracked (Rating 6) and the data transferred out. The data also has an attached Data Bomb (Rating 3) which must be defused or it will detonate, destroying the data. Triggering an Alert while hacking the Data Lock will cause the Data Lock to attempt to destroy the data, this can be prevented with an opposed Computer + Edit test vs. the Data Lock Rating x 2. Of course, this operation will look quite suspicious and will need to be done out of sight (such as the restroom with cameras disabled. Hyru himself will need to be duped somehow (or rendered "unsuspicously" unconscious) or else he will be aware that the data has been stolen.
Scene 1 - The Meet and Legwork
I'm keeping this section purposefully short for now since the details of the run to follow will likely change what is said by the Johnson in this initial scene. However, at this point I do decide on a few "parameters" for the run that may affect how the players approach it. First off, the players can hit any number of the three targets that they want, but the Johnson is going to be paying per target. Secondly, he wants the information bad enough that he doesn't really care how they get it, however the info is much more valuable if it can be retrieved silently, so the team will get a 50% bonus if the info was retrieved in such a way that the owners do not know it was stolen. I'm expecting 5 players on this run, so I "eyeball" the reward at
25,000 per piece of data retrieved (5,000 per runner) which goes up to 7,500 per runner for doing it "silently." With three pieces of data the reward per runner will range from 5,000 to 22,500. This means there will be strong incentive for them to go for all 3 targets, and attempt to do it quietly.Target 1 - Shibata Manager
So, this target goes with the "home" theme from before. However, instead of having the target be a "home" I decided that it will just be a person and the run can occur either in that person's home or somewhere else. So, this target will be a Project Manager that Shibata Construction & Engineering sent to Seattle to work out a detailed plan for the final stage of the Kepler probe project. He carries with him some detailed reports on the state and future direction of the probe project and has taken great precaution to keep them secret. Back in my earlier days of running Shadowrun, I used to design runs with a problem/obstacle and then design the solution to that problem. I would essentially stonewall all other player plans until they got to the one I was thinking of or had prepared for. This is a bad way to do things; players feel like they don't have true control. So now, although it is much more work on my part, I simply develop the problem in as much detail as I can, then let the players come up with their own solution. This allows for much more player freedom and I have found causes much more memorable moments in the gaming session as players come up with plans that I never would have anticipated. So, in order to facilitate that sort of player freedom I need to plan out where this manager is going to be for the entire timeframe of the run. Then the players can simply pick their own time.
So, I'm thinking the "meet" with Mr. Johnson will happen sometime around 6pm, with the manager leaving early in the morning say: 6:20am. First this manager needs a name: Ikara Hyru - I'm not great with names, especially Asian ones, but its sounds Asian to me. So, he's in Seattle right now, and will be leaving via suborbital to Japan early in the morning. Looks like there are 3 major times that the players can attempt to get their info: at his house, in transit, and at the airport.
Home
Federated-Boeing is not stupid. They know this probe project is a chance to compete with the "big boys" in the corporate world, as does Shibata C & E, so neither are going to be callous with their security. That being true, F-B will most likely offer to house this visiting manager in "Boeingville." This location is briefly described in New Seattle as a high security, private, gated community in Everett. Mr. Hyru has an apartment there that F-B loaned to him while he was on business in Seattle. They also threw in a personal bodyguard for him. So, Mr. Hyru has a personal bodyguard who is watching his apartment 24 hours a day. This apartment is in "Boeingville" which is a walled, private community, with well-armed guards on duty 24 hours at all the entrances. The area is heavily patrolled by F-B security personnel as well as drones. All people in the area have their SIN's verified as F-B employees or visitors that are authorized to be there. They will respond quickly and with force to any intrusion. Although possible, this would be the toughest place to attempt to get the data from Hyru.
Transit
Hyru is flying internationally so he will want to be at the airport plenty early. So, it seems reasonable that he'll leave about 3 hours before his flight: 3:30am. He will be taken to the airport by an F-B provided limo, accompanied by his bodyguard. The route goes south through Everett and Downtown Seattle to Sea-Tac. For extra measure, I'm saying that F-B has a second team in a car following the limo for extra protection. This is a VIP from a foreign corporation, and they want to make a good impression. Given this is very early in the morning, the traffic should be light so I'm saying it takes 60 minutes to go from the apartment to Sea-Tac. Again, this time isn't favorable for the players. Any attempt on the vehicle while it is in transit will almost certainly end in a "messy" extraction of the data including a fight with F-B security personnel somewhere in Downtown Seattle where security is ultra-tight (Lone Star will respond in force inside of a minute or two). The players will probably be smart enough not to attempt anything here.
Sea-Tac
Hyru arrives at the airport at 4:30am and immediately proceeds to the International terminal for Asian departures to check-in for his flight. Only his bodyguard accompanies him into the airport. Once in line at security the bodyguard will loiter around, growing more bored (and less attentive) while Hyru waits in line and then proceeds to go through terminal security. In total it will take him 52 minutes to clear security and enter the terminal. Once Hyru is in the International terminal the F-B bodyguard will leave, his work is done. So, Hyru will be alone for just over an hour in the terminal waiting for his flight to board. He will do a series of normal activities during that time such as reading the news, getting breakfast, and going to the washroom. During this time he is most vulnerable, even though Sea-Tac security is no slouch. First, the players have to get into the airport, which does a cursory check (rating 2) for weapons. Anything above pistol size will likely be detected. Second, they'll need to get into the International terminal. Security at the terminal is much tougher. A Rating 5 MAD will scan everyone going in for weapons or cyberware. All SINs and Permits will be thoroughly checked (Rating 5). Also, no one gets in without a ticket (duh). Purchasing a round-trip sub-orbital ticket to Japan will cost
4,000 (half that for one-way). If they ask for a refund before the flight leaves they'll only get 50% of it back (last minute cancellation fee, natch). Hacking a ticket can be done (also not easy): the airport ticket system is on a System 5 Firewall 4 node. The ticket database is Encrypted (rating 4) with an IC program constantly watching it for signs of tampering (Rating 4 Agent with Analyze 4). Any intrusion that is spotted will trigger an Alert and a Security Hacker will log in next round to investigate. As a precaution, all tickets will be temporarily invalidated and each one manually checked for validity by the Security Hacker. Magical security is limited to patrolling spirits and projecting mages. Active spell effects will only cause an alarm to be trigger if they are suspicious/dangerous (any Combat spell, Invisibility). Hyru will report any attack on himself or overtly suspicious activity to Sea-Tac security. Security personnel will first attempt to use non-lethal methods to capture assailants, but will respond to lethal force in kind.Hyru's Data
When they actually get down to retrieving the data, they'll hit some more obstacles. First, Hyru's public Commlink which does broadcast his ID with his plane ticket and such, and appears to have some "work" information on it. One hit on an Intuition test will reveal that the data seems unnaturally "bare" and is probably all "planted." Hyru's "real" work Commlink is implanted and running in Hidden mode: System 4, Response 3, Firewall 4, Signal 4, Stealth 4, Analyze 4. Winning a Computer + Analyze vs. System + Stealth of the node will reveal a hidden link between the public Commlink and the hidden one (a EW + Scan (4) test will also reveal the Hidden node). Once in the Hidden Commlink, a search will still not reveal the files but only an Access Log entry indicating that they were transferred via fiberoptic cable port to an external, cyberware, data storage device: a Data Lock. The Data Lock is not wireless so the players will have to physically locate it on his body, hidden behind a false nipple (Perception Threshold 4). Then they'll need to physically connect to it via cable. The device itself must be hacked (Rating 3 all around), then the Encryption on the data cracked (Rating 6) and the data transferred out. The data also has an attached Data Bomb (Rating 3) which must be defused or it will detonate, destroying the data. Triggering an Alert while hacking the Data Lock will cause the Data Lock to attempt to destroy the data, this can be prevented with an opposed Computer + Edit test vs. the Data Lock Rating x 2. Of course, this operation will look quite suspicious and will need to be done out of sight (such as the restroom with cameras disabled. Hyru himself will need to be duped somehow (or rendered "unsuspicously" unconscious) or else he will be aware that the data has been stolen.
Target 2 - Federated-Boeing Factory
The second target I decided to detail was the one following the "factory" theme. For this target, the runners will have to steal a drone prototype from the Federated-Boeing factory in Renton. Here's a tip for you GM's out there: many of the major locations in Shadowrun (especially in Seattle) are based on real world locations. In this case, a quick internet search revealed that there was, indeed, a Boeing facility in Renton, WA. I googled the location and was able to get a nice overhead map that I can show to my players. Easy-peasie. After that, I started to detail the factory. First off, I decided that this factory is almost completely automated, and builds things "to order" with very little human intervention. This is done by having a large series of construction drones that execute a complex series of orders from a controlling computer. During the evenings, the factory is almost completely abandoned, so this should provide good opportunity to the runners to sneak in. Now, if they want to achieve the "stealth" bonus for this target they're going to have to get a little creative. Simply sneaking in and stealing the drone will accomplish the basics, but Federated-Boeing is sure to realize that it is missing. So, I'm hoping that they realize (without too much of me dropping hints) that if they could gain access to the factory controller computer, they could simply tell it to build a second copy of the drone and take that instead. With a little "creative" computer log editing, F-B will never know that anything happened.
Getting In
The F-B factory in Renton is briefly described in New Seattle as a sight where F-B manufactures unmanned ariel vehicles. It doesn't mention that security is exceptionally tight, so I decided to design it so that security is not a pushover, but definitely not impossible. First, the perimeter will be surrounded by a 4 meter high fence and topped with razorwire. A great deal of the exterior facility is a parking lot and loading area. This area is covered by patrolling ariel drones mounted with cameras. If the drones spot someone, they will attempt to verify their ID as an authorized employee or visitor. Entrances into the grounds are at gated checkpoints which are manned by F-B Security guards. With Federated-Boeing being a significant corp in Seattle, and a major manufacturer of military hardware, I'm thinking the guards won't have a great deal of 'ware enhancements but will be well trained, armored, and armed. This probably means full security armor and assault rifles. Conversely, F-B probably doesn't have a great deal in the way of magical resources, so magical security at the facility will be fairly light: 3 bound spirits patrolling in astral space (with a lot of ground to cover) and Wards on the building walls. The description in New Seattle states that there is an R&D section of the facility that has much heavier security, so much of the "heavy" resources are probably directed there. That area will have augmented guards on duty 24 hours, a dedicated spirit, a mage on call, and a second stronger Ward. However, unless the runners are being particularly brain-dead, they shouldn't even try to approach that area. Now, I'm a strong believer in creating a realistic, living world where things aren't simply waiting around for the players to interact with them. So, whenever designing a location such as this I like to think about its purpose and what it's "normal" operation day must be like. Considering this is a factory that produces drones en masse, working 24 hours, it's probably not unusual at all for pickups to happen at all hours of the night. So, if the players decide to masquerade as a transport there to pick up an order, this in and of itself will not appear unusual. All vehicle and personnel ID's will be verified (Rating 4) by the guard at the checkpoint. However, in the middle of the night he will not be feeling particularly attentive and will only catch suspicious clues if they are obvious.
The Factory
Again, this is a factory that deals in high volume so it must have a fairly significant "loading dock" type area, capable of handling smaller vans all the way up to full-sized semi trucks. This will almost certainly be the entrance of choice for the players. However, if they think they have a better idea, I'm thinking there must be a front entrance that leads into some sort of reception area, with another security checkpoint manned by a guard, which then leads into the offices area. They can gain entrance to the factory by winding their way through a maze of hallways and offices, all under the watchful eye of internal cameras, unless they disable them. At the back, the loading dock probably has a couple large overhead doors (for semi trucks), at least one smaller overhead door (for "cube vans" and smaller type trucks), and a standard (human-sized) door. Every door is locked by a Maglock (Rating 4). Additionally, the overhead doors are only opened by a command from the factory's internal computer, and lifting them manually would be extremely difficult. Cameras also cover the loading dock area (attached to the back of the building). Just inside the loading doors is a series of storage racks for neat organizing and categorizing of production runs. This area, as well as the factory floor itself, sees only a two-man guard patrol every hour. As far as the Matrix goes, the factory has three nodes: an Administration node, a Security node, and a Controller node for the factory drones. The Admin and Security nodes can be directly accessed only inside or very close to the factory building itself (must be within 10 meters of the building). The Security node controls all of the door locks and has feeds from all the cameras and internal sensors. This node is a difficult one to crack with a Firewall 5 and Analyze 5 running, it also is running a Rating 4 IC program with Analyze, Trace, Armor, and Stealth constantly looking for intruders in the system. If an intruder is spotted or an Active Alert is triggered the IC will attempt to Trace the intruder while the Security Spider arrives to prevent further damage and deal with the intruder. A Security Spider is on duty 24 hours a day, but most of his attention is focused on monitoring the R&D portion of the facility, which has much more sensitive equipment. The Controller node can only be accessed from inside the controller office, which is a small room at the top of a metal staircase, overlooking the factory floor. The door to the office is locked with a Rating 4 Maglock with a Fingerprint reader, and it is not wireless enabled. The Controller node has a rating 3 Firewall with only an Analyze 2 program and a specialized Command 4 program for the factory drones. The Administration node can be accessed from anywhere inside the facility. It has a Firewall 3 and Analyze 3 program running. This node contains all of the “working� information of the facility is kept including: personnel files, reports, order history, and the pickup schedule. If the runners want to insert information to make it appear that they are here to legitimately pick up an order, this is the node to do that in. User level access and a Computer + Edit (2) test will create the necessary records. The guard stations around the facility lookup the information in this node If the group's Hacker is feeling suicidal, the Admin and Controller systems can be accessed from the external Matrix but only through a Rating 6 “chokepoint� node loaded with enough IC to make you change your mind.
The Prototype
The original build order sent to the facility will start at 1am and has the drone being completed at 3:30am. The factory drones take 90 minutes to produce the prototype from scratch. The drone itself is a simple cylindrical design, 2 meters long, 1 meter wide, and weighing 100kg. It contains no propulsion or sensor systems: it is just the hull. Once the drone is completed by the factory systems it is delivered into a specially marked holding area in the back of the factory to await pickup. As part of the construction, the drone was implanted with a hidden RFID tag for tracking purposes. A Computer + Analyze (4) test while examining the drone build orders will reveal this as will an Electronic Warfare + Scan (4) test after the drone is complete. A tag eraser will neutralize it.
Getting Out
Security scanners at the checkpoints to the facility will immediately pick up the RFID tracking tag if it is not neutralized somehow. Depending on how the players did or didn't manipulate the pickup schedule in the Admin Node determines what the guards will be looking for. If the schedule shows that the runners are supposed to be transporting the prototype then the guards will attempt to verify this when they leave and will question them if the tracking tag cannot be found. Conversely, if the pickup schedule doesn't show that they should take the prototype the guards will question any attempt to remove it. The guards do not normally search vehicles as they leave and will only do so if the players do something that seems overly suspicious. A record of the runners leaving, their IDs, and the "cargo" ID will all be recorded in the factory's Administration node. Unless the players erase any traces of the pickup, Federated-Boeing will know that a copy of the prototype was stolen. For the runners to receive the "stealth" bonus, they will need to steal the prototype in such a way that F-B has no record of a copy being produced or that anything but the original prototype was taken.
The second target I decided to detail was the one following the "factory" theme. For this target, the runners will have to steal a drone prototype from the Federated-Boeing factory in Renton. Here's a tip for you GM's out there: many of the major locations in Shadowrun (especially in Seattle) are based on real world locations. In this case, a quick internet search revealed that there was, indeed, a Boeing facility in Renton, WA. I googled the location and was able to get a nice overhead map that I can show to my players. Easy-peasie. After that, I started to detail the factory. First off, I decided that this factory is almost completely automated, and builds things "to order" with very little human intervention. This is done by having a large series of construction drones that execute a complex series of orders from a controlling computer. During the evenings, the factory is almost completely abandoned, so this should provide good opportunity to the runners to sneak in. Now, if they want to achieve the "stealth" bonus for this target they're going to have to get a little creative. Simply sneaking in and stealing the drone will accomplish the basics, but Federated-Boeing is sure to realize that it is missing. So, I'm hoping that they realize (without too much of me dropping hints) that if they could gain access to the factory controller computer, they could simply tell it to build a second copy of the drone and take that instead. With a little "creative" computer log editing, F-B will never know that anything happened.
Getting In
The F-B factory in Renton is briefly described in New Seattle as a sight where F-B manufactures unmanned ariel vehicles. It doesn't mention that security is exceptionally tight, so I decided to design it so that security is not a pushover, but definitely not impossible. First, the perimeter will be surrounded by a 4 meter high fence and topped with razorwire. A great deal of the exterior facility is a parking lot and loading area. This area is covered by patrolling ariel drones mounted with cameras. If the drones spot someone, they will attempt to verify their ID as an authorized employee or visitor. Entrances into the grounds are at gated checkpoints which are manned by F-B Security guards. With Federated-Boeing being a significant corp in Seattle, and a major manufacturer of military hardware, I'm thinking the guards won't have a great deal of 'ware enhancements but will be well trained, armored, and armed. This probably means full security armor and assault rifles. Conversely, F-B probably doesn't have a great deal in the way of magical resources, so magical security at the facility will be fairly light: 3 bound spirits patrolling in astral space (with a lot of ground to cover) and Wards on the building walls. The description in New Seattle states that there is an R&D section of the facility that has much heavier security, so much of the "heavy" resources are probably directed there. That area will have augmented guards on duty 24 hours, a dedicated spirit, a mage on call, and a second stronger Ward. However, unless the runners are being particularly brain-dead, they shouldn't even try to approach that area. Now, I'm a strong believer in creating a realistic, living world where things aren't simply waiting around for the players to interact with them. So, whenever designing a location such as this I like to think about its purpose and what it's "normal" operation day must be like. Considering this is a factory that produces drones en masse, working 24 hours, it's probably not unusual at all for pickups to happen at all hours of the night. So, if the players decide to masquerade as a transport there to pick up an order, this in and of itself will not appear unusual. All vehicle and personnel ID's will be verified (Rating 4) by the guard at the checkpoint. However, in the middle of the night he will not be feeling particularly attentive and will only catch suspicious clues if they are obvious.
The Factory
Again, this is a factory that deals in high volume so it must have a fairly significant "loading dock" type area, capable of handling smaller vans all the way up to full-sized semi trucks. This will almost certainly be the entrance of choice for the players. However, if they think they have a better idea, I'm thinking there must be a front entrance that leads into some sort of reception area, with another security checkpoint manned by a guard, which then leads into the offices area. They can gain entrance to the factory by winding their way through a maze of hallways and offices, all under the watchful eye of internal cameras, unless they disable them. At the back, the loading dock probably has a couple large overhead doors (for semi trucks), at least one smaller overhead door (for "cube vans" and smaller type trucks), and a standard (human-sized) door. Every door is locked by a Maglock (Rating 4). Additionally, the overhead doors are only opened by a command from the factory's internal computer, and lifting them manually would be extremely difficult. Cameras also cover the loading dock area (attached to the back of the building). Just inside the loading doors is a series of storage racks for neat organizing and categorizing of production runs. This area, as well as the factory floor itself, sees only a two-man guard patrol every hour. As far as the Matrix goes, the factory has three nodes: an Administration node, a Security node, and a Controller node for the factory drones. The Admin and Security nodes can be directly accessed only inside or very close to the factory building itself (must be within 10 meters of the building). The Security node controls all of the door locks and has feeds from all the cameras and internal sensors. This node is a difficult one to crack with a Firewall 5 and Analyze 5 running, it also is running a Rating 4 IC program with Analyze, Trace, Armor, and Stealth constantly looking for intruders in the system. If an intruder is spotted or an Active Alert is triggered the IC will attempt to Trace the intruder while the Security Spider arrives to prevent further damage and deal with the intruder. A Security Spider is on duty 24 hours a day, but most of his attention is focused on monitoring the R&D portion of the facility, which has much more sensitive equipment. The Controller node can only be accessed from inside the controller office, which is a small room at the top of a metal staircase, overlooking the factory floor. The door to the office is locked with a Rating 4 Maglock with a Fingerprint reader, and it is not wireless enabled. The Controller node has a rating 3 Firewall with only an Analyze 2 program and a specialized Command 4 program for the factory drones. The Administration node can be accessed from anywhere inside the facility. It has a Firewall 3 and Analyze 3 program running. This node contains all of the “working� information of the facility is kept including: personnel files, reports, order history, and the pickup schedule. If the runners want to insert information to make it appear that they are here to legitimately pick up an order, this is the node to do that in. User level access and a Computer + Edit (2) test will create the necessary records. The guard stations around the facility lookup the information in this node If the group's Hacker is feeling suicidal, the Admin and Controller systems can be accessed from the external Matrix but only through a Rating 6 “chokepoint� node loaded with enough IC to make you change your mind.
The Prototype
The original build order sent to the facility will start at 1am and has the drone being completed at 3:30am. The factory drones take 90 minutes to produce the prototype from scratch. The drone itself is a simple cylindrical design, 2 meters long, 1 meter wide, and weighing 100kg. It contains no propulsion or sensor systems: it is just the hull. Once the drone is completed by the factory systems it is delivered into a specially marked holding area in the back of the factory to await pickup. As part of the construction, the drone was implanted with a hidden RFID tag for tracking purposes. A Computer + Analyze (4) test while examining the drone build orders will reveal this as will an Electronic Warfare + Scan (4) test after the drone is complete. A tag eraser will neutralize it.
Getting Out
Security scanners at the checkpoints to the facility will immediately pick up the RFID tracking tag if it is not neutralized somehow. Depending on how the players did or didn't manipulate the pickup schedule in the Admin Node determines what the guards will be looking for. If the schedule shows that the runners are supposed to be transporting the prototype then the guards will attempt to verify this when they leave and will question them if the tracking tag cannot be found. Conversely, if the pickup schedule doesn't show that they should take the prototype the guards will question any attempt to remove it. The guards do not normally search vehicles as they leave and will only do so if the players do something that seems overly suspicious. A record of the runners leaving, their IDs, and the "cargo" ID will all be recorded in the factory's Administration node. Unless the players erase any traces of the pickup, Federated-Boeing will know that a copy of the prototype was stolen. For the runners to receive the "stealth" bonus, they will need to steal the prototype in such a way that F-B has no record of a copy being produced or that anything but the original prototype was taken.
Target 3: Aztechnology Office
Alright now I'm on to the third and final target of this run. This, just from my preliminary thoughts, will be the most difficult target to hit. This is due to a few factors that I just can't compromise on. First, Aztechnology is putting a lot of stock in this probe project, Year of the Comet mentions that they are helping out a couple "little corps" with this because they're trying to cozy their way into Wuxing's Pacific Prosperity Group (PPG). Since they put so much stock in this project, I couldn't see them handling it from any other place but their Seattle Head Office. I also don't want to make the facility easy to penetrate, either, as Aztechnology is no pushover corp and their Seattle Office is a bastion that the corp wants to hold in the North-West. So, that means I need to design a hole that the players can exploit to get their job done without making it seem like a gaping flaw in Aztechnology's security. As a secondary effect, I also wanted to provide a little more variety to this target than "just another data grab." That's when the idea finally came to me: a person. Often, extremely tightly secure facilities are most vulnerable to be attacked from the legitimate user. So, I started to design a "user" that would be the avenue through which the team could get what they needed. The manager that AZT had handling their end of the probe project would be an unrealistic choice as a security threat, AZT probably screened their employees very closely. However, someone working under him, like a secretary or assistant, could be the threat. I started to work from that assumption and design a person that could be a security risk, a secretary/assistant named Maria Veracruz.
The Office
The Aztechnology manager in charge the Kepler probe project is named Harry Raine. Recently, a package of confidential information including production materials requests and build schedules has been sent to him for review and approval. Normally, this sort of information is immediately moved to a secure system that only Raine has access to and all other copies of the information is destroyed. However, by random bad luck, the transmission came in after Raine had already left for the evening. In this circumstance, his assistant, Maria Veracruz, has been instructed to hold the data on her terminal until it can be "personally" delivered to Raine, who will be in at 8am the next morning. Both Raine and Veracruz work at the Aztechnology Pyramid in Downtown Seattle. This facility has extremely tight security, with the Jaguar Guards providing the physical presence. Veracruz works on the 8th floor of the office. The bottom 3 floors of the Pyramid are a publicly accessible mall (as mentioned in New Seattle), open until 11pm daily (for your convenience). If the runners want to break into the facility without "using" Veracruz, this is the most likely avenue. Access to the office wing is through a bank of secure elevators. These elevators can be accessed from the Mall or from an "employee only" entrance. However, access to the office wing from the Mall can also be gained through the HVAC system. These ducts are still monitored by motion sensors (configured to detect large objects moving through the ducts) and small drones. Magical security at the facility is particularly tight, considering the considerable Magical resources that AZT has. Each floor is Warded off individually (with particularly sensitive rooms having a separate Ward), and each floor has multiple bound spirits on patrol. There is also one Magician on guard duty for every 5 floors of the facility. The Jaguar guards will respond quickly to any intruder reported.
Maria Veracruz
Maria Veracruz represents the biggest flaw in the system security. She has authorization to enter the facility, log on to her workstation, and access the data. She presents a prime target for the players' use. Fortunately for them, she has some weaknesses that can be exploited. Ms. Veracruz is a Latino woman in her late twenties, born to parents that lived their lives in the sheltered corporate world, and never rose to another above middle manager prominence. Due to her incredibly dull childhood, Maria developed somewhat of a wild streak during her teens which continues to this day. During work hours, Maria is a loyal, hard-working employee who finds her job quite dull, but she continues to work and look for advancement to fit the comfortable lifestyle of "nice things" that is familiar from her upbringing. During her teens, Maria chafed at her parents' upbringing and developed a wild streak. She is heavily into the Seattle club scene and is a "recreational" drug and BTL user. During her night "excursions" she lets herself go a little bit wild, and is willing to try many new things. Aztechnology security is not stupid, they have already flagged Maria's file as a potential security risk. As such, particularly suspicious activity on the part of her account, such as coming into work during unusual hours, will be noticed immediately by security personnel. However, coming into work an hour or so early will not be seen as unusual. After finishing work at 6pm, Maria will head back home to her apartment in Lower Queen Anne Hill in Downtown Seattle. She will have a subdued supper at home, then change into her "club" clothes (a provocative tight leather dress) and head to Dante's Inferno by 8pm. She will remain there until 11pm. Maria frequents the club and has several friends there; she has achieved level 4 in the club and is quite proud of this. She will begin the evening dancing and meeting her friends. She will order a steady stream of drinks, growing increasingly harder. The last few hours of the evening will be spent in a private booth with her closest friends, doing shots of Bliss and BTLs. Maria is a very attractive Hispanic woman and it is not unusual for her to take home people that she meets at the club, especially after the evening's dose of narcotics. While at the club she will refuse to talk about her work, as she goes to Dante's to get away from her boring job. However, she will reveal what she knows about her work under heavy coercion, such as threat of physical harm, or by being drugged (Gamma-Scopolamine, BBB pg. 246). Once she knows what kind of people the runners are, she become extremely frightened and will remain passively cooperative, with her sole focus being staying alive. If forced to accompany the runners on their intrusion, she will warn building Security at any opportunity she gets as she believes the runners will kill her once they are done. If confined during the run, she will notify AZT security with everything she knows once she is set free. This will, of course, cost the runners their "stealth" bonus, and if she is able to identify them, put AZT security on their tails.
Security: What she does know
Veracruz knows the following about building security (the runners can also discover all of this through good Legwork). When entering the building, there is a security station with a guard that verifies her identity. She must turn in her personal Commlink while in the building. She passes through "some kind of scanner" as well. Her workstation is configured to accept connections only from her Datajack and a short list of other authorized users. She uses a different password to access the probe files than the one she uses to access her workstation. She has been given strict instructions to deliver the data package to Raine the instant he arrives in the office, and has been told that the files will delete themselves off of her machine when they are given to Raine. When she accepted the position at AZT she was implanted with some sort of RFID tag. Outside of daytime hours (8am to 5pm) she only sees one guard, the one at the employee entrance, when going to work.
Security: What she doesn't know
These are the technical details that Maria does not know. Veracruz's workstation has been specially configured to only accept connections from a short "white list" of approved device ID's (either the datajack ID or the Commlink ID). A datajack can be modified to emit Veracruz's datajack ID (once it has been observed) with a Logic + Hardware (4, 1 hour) extended test. Her workstation can only be accessed in User mode by Veracruz or Raine. Her workstation will accept a connection from another Commlink only at Security or Admin level, and only if the Commlink's ID matches one on the list pre-authorized and entered into the system. The AZT office has several Security Spiders on duty 24 hours a day and they will respond quickly to any alert that is raised in the system. If an intruder is spotted, a Spider will dispatch a security team to the location of the Node placed on alert, attempt to Trace the intruder, and prevent any further damage to the system. If the Trace completes, the Security team will be given the location info. The data package in question is easy to find on Veracruz's system: Computer + Browse (2). The package is marked as Certified Data (Unwired, pg. 95), meaning it will delete itself if moved to any other Node, and will keep an internal record of all times it is touched. To bypass this security and copy the file requires a Hacking + Edit (4). The package is also equipped with a Data Bomb (Rating 4) which will detonate if any attempt to illegally move the data fails. The Data Bomb will destroy the data package and put the system on Alert. In order to leave no trace of the data package being stolen, the system's Access Log must be located (Data Search + Browse (3)), and altered (Hacking + Edit (4)). A Rating 3 Agent with Analyze makes periodic sweeps of this system, looking for intruders and will alert the on-duty Security Spider if one is located. If the players are discovered they will be overwhelmed in a matter of minutes, so they should know to keep the intrusion as quiet as possible, and get out of the facility as quickly as possible if they are discovered. If this part of the run goes bad there is a good chance all players caught inside the office will be killed. I generally don't like to do that, but I also don't want to pull many punches and diminish the very real danger of this situation. However, if they are smart about it, they should be able to use Veracruz to get them in and out without being noticed.
Alright now I'm on to the third and final target of this run. This, just from my preliminary thoughts, will be the most difficult target to hit. This is due to a few factors that I just can't compromise on. First, Aztechnology is putting a lot of stock in this probe project, Year of the Comet mentions that they are helping out a couple "little corps" with this because they're trying to cozy their way into Wuxing's Pacific Prosperity Group (PPG). Since they put so much stock in this project, I couldn't see them handling it from any other place but their Seattle Head Office. I also don't want to make the facility easy to penetrate, either, as Aztechnology is no pushover corp and their Seattle Office is a bastion that the corp wants to hold in the North-West. So, that means I need to design a hole that the players can exploit to get their job done without making it seem like a gaping flaw in Aztechnology's security. As a secondary effect, I also wanted to provide a little more variety to this target than "just another data grab." That's when the idea finally came to me: a person. Often, extremely tightly secure facilities are most vulnerable to be attacked from the legitimate user. So, I started to design a "user" that would be the avenue through which the team could get what they needed. The manager that AZT had handling their end of the probe project would be an unrealistic choice as a security threat, AZT probably screened their employees very closely. However, someone working under him, like a secretary or assistant, could be the threat. I started to work from that assumption and design a person that could be a security risk, a secretary/assistant named Maria Veracruz.
The Office
The Aztechnology manager in charge the Kepler probe project is named Harry Raine. Recently, a package of confidential information including production materials requests and build schedules has been sent to him for review and approval. Normally, this sort of information is immediately moved to a secure system that only Raine has access to and all other copies of the information is destroyed. However, by random bad luck, the transmission came in after Raine had already left for the evening. In this circumstance, his assistant, Maria Veracruz, has been instructed to hold the data on her terminal until it can be "personally" delivered to Raine, who will be in at 8am the next morning. Both Raine and Veracruz work at the Aztechnology Pyramid in Downtown Seattle. This facility has extremely tight security, with the Jaguar Guards providing the physical presence. Veracruz works on the 8th floor of the office. The bottom 3 floors of the Pyramid are a publicly accessible mall (as mentioned in New Seattle), open until 11pm daily (for your convenience). If the runners want to break into the facility without "using" Veracruz, this is the most likely avenue. Access to the office wing is through a bank of secure elevators. These elevators can be accessed from the Mall or from an "employee only" entrance. However, access to the office wing from the Mall can also be gained through the HVAC system. These ducts are still monitored by motion sensors (configured to detect large objects moving through the ducts) and small drones. Magical security at the facility is particularly tight, considering the considerable Magical resources that AZT has. Each floor is Warded off individually (with particularly sensitive rooms having a separate Ward), and each floor has multiple bound spirits on patrol. There is also one Magician on guard duty for every 5 floors of the facility. The Jaguar guards will respond quickly to any intruder reported.
Maria Veracruz
Maria Veracruz represents the biggest flaw in the system security. She has authorization to enter the facility, log on to her workstation, and access the data. She presents a prime target for the players' use. Fortunately for them, she has some weaknesses that can be exploited. Ms. Veracruz is a Latino woman in her late twenties, born to parents that lived their lives in the sheltered corporate world, and never rose to another above middle manager prominence. Due to her incredibly dull childhood, Maria developed somewhat of a wild streak during her teens which continues to this day. During work hours, Maria is a loyal, hard-working employee who finds her job quite dull, but she continues to work and look for advancement to fit the comfortable lifestyle of "nice things" that is familiar from her upbringing. During her teens, Maria chafed at her parents' upbringing and developed a wild streak. She is heavily into the Seattle club scene and is a "recreational" drug and BTL user. During her night "excursions" she lets herself go a little bit wild, and is willing to try many new things. Aztechnology security is not stupid, they have already flagged Maria's file as a potential security risk. As such, particularly suspicious activity on the part of her account, such as coming into work during unusual hours, will be noticed immediately by security personnel. However, coming into work an hour or so early will not be seen as unusual. After finishing work at 6pm, Maria will head back home to her apartment in Lower Queen Anne Hill in Downtown Seattle. She will have a subdued supper at home, then change into her "club" clothes (a provocative tight leather dress) and head to Dante's Inferno by 8pm. She will remain there until 11pm. Maria frequents the club and has several friends there; she has achieved level 4 in the club and is quite proud of this. She will begin the evening dancing and meeting her friends. She will order a steady stream of drinks, growing increasingly harder. The last few hours of the evening will be spent in a private booth with her closest friends, doing shots of Bliss and BTLs. Maria is a very attractive Hispanic woman and it is not unusual for her to take home people that she meets at the club, especially after the evening's dose of narcotics. While at the club she will refuse to talk about her work, as she goes to Dante's to get away from her boring job. However, she will reveal what she knows about her work under heavy coercion, such as threat of physical harm, or by being drugged (Gamma-Scopolamine, BBB pg. 246). Once she knows what kind of people the runners are, she become extremely frightened and will remain passively cooperative, with her sole focus being staying alive. If forced to accompany the runners on their intrusion, she will warn building Security at any opportunity she gets as she believes the runners will kill her once they are done. If confined during the run, she will notify AZT security with everything she knows once she is set free. This will, of course, cost the runners their "stealth" bonus, and if she is able to identify them, put AZT security on their tails.
Security: What she does know
Veracruz knows the following about building security (the runners can also discover all of this through good Legwork). When entering the building, there is a security station with a guard that verifies her identity. She must turn in her personal Commlink while in the building. She passes through "some kind of scanner" as well. Her workstation is configured to accept connections only from her Datajack and a short list of other authorized users. She uses a different password to access the probe files than the one she uses to access her workstation. She has been given strict instructions to deliver the data package to Raine the instant he arrives in the office, and has been told that the files will delete themselves off of her machine when they are given to Raine. When she accepted the position at AZT she was implanted with some sort of RFID tag. Outside of daytime hours (8am to 5pm) she only sees one guard, the one at the employee entrance, when going to work.
Security: What she doesn't know
These are the technical details that Maria does not know. Veracruz's workstation has been specially configured to only accept connections from a short "white list" of approved device ID's (either the datajack ID or the Commlink ID). A datajack can be modified to emit Veracruz's datajack ID (once it has been observed) with a Logic + Hardware (4, 1 hour) extended test. Her workstation can only be accessed in User mode by Veracruz or Raine. Her workstation will accept a connection from another Commlink only at Security or Admin level, and only if the Commlink's ID matches one on the list pre-authorized and entered into the system. The AZT office has several Security Spiders on duty 24 hours a day and they will respond quickly to any alert that is raised in the system. If an intruder is spotted, a Spider will dispatch a security team to the location of the Node placed on alert, attempt to Trace the intruder, and prevent any further damage to the system. If the Trace completes, the Security team will be given the location info. The data package in question is easy to find on Veracruz's system: Computer + Browse (2). The package is marked as Certified Data (Unwired, pg. 95), meaning it will delete itself if moved to any other Node, and will keep an internal record of all times it is touched. To bypass this security and copy the file requires a Hacking + Edit (4). The package is also equipped with a Data Bomb (Rating 4) which will detonate if any attempt to illegally move the data fails. The Data Bomb will destroy the data package and put the system on Alert. In order to leave no trace of the data package being stolen, the system's Access Log must be located (Data Search + Browse (3)), and altered (Hacking + Edit (4)). A Rating 3 Agent with Analyze makes periodic sweeps of this system, looking for intruders and will alert the on-duty Security Spider if one is located. If the players are discovered they will be overwhelmed in a matter of minutes, so they should know to keep the intrusion as quiet as possible, and get out of the facility as quickly as possible if they are discovered. If this part of the run goes bad there is a good chance all players caught inside the office will be killed. I generally don't like to do that, but I also don't want to pull many punches and diminish the very real danger of this situation. However, if they are smart about it, they should be able to use Veracruz to get them in and out without being noticed.
Now that I have a detailed layout of the run I usually review it and make sure all of the details make sense in my head. I also review it with an eye toward balance, trying to find places where I need to make things easier or more difficult for my players. One aspect I noticed when reviewing it was that the airport scene was probably too difficult. There would really be know opportune place to render Hyru unconscious and perform the difficult data extraction, so I decided to throw the players a bone.
Target 1 - Addition
While at the airport, Hyru will spend his time in the Gold Travelers lounge. The lounge includes luxury furniture, a bar with a full restaurant menu, and sound-dampened "quiet rooms" with a bed where patrons can catch rest before their flight leaves. One of these "quiet rooms" (once the camera is disabled) will provide an ideal location for the runners to perform the awkward data extraction on Hyru.
Target 1 - Addition
While at the airport, Hyru will spend his time in the Gold Travelers lounge. The lounge includes luxury furniture, a bar with a full restaurant menu, and sound-dampened "quiet rooms" with a bed where patrons can catch rest before their flight leaves. One of these "quiet rooms" (once the camera is disabled) will provide an ideal location for the runners to perform the awkward data extraction on Hyru.
Scene 1 - The Meet
Now that the details of all the subsequent scenes are set, this is usually where I go back and design the first scene, which is almost always "the meet" with the Johnson. The players will be contacted by their Fixer to meet with the Johnson they know as "Chrome" (for his two obvious cyberlimbs) at about 5:30pm. The Meet will take place in Chrome's favored location: some god-forsaken hole in the Redmond Barrens. At the meet Chrome will ask them if they are interested in a job to gather critical data in a short period of time, with a great deal of discretion on their part. Due to their past successes, he's putting a lot of faith in them for a job on this short notice. When (if?) the players accept he will give them the details as he knows it. By random chance, his "sources" have learned of 3 lucrative opportunities to gather critical intelligence on the Kepler probe. The problem is: the opportunity to hit all 3 targets will expire after tonight. Chrome will give the players all the information he has on the 3 targets and they are to hit any number of them that they choose. The Pay is 30,000 (upped from my first estimates) per target retrieved, with a bonus of 50% if (after 3 days time) his sources indicate the target corp was not aware of the theft. Here is what Chrome knows of the 3 targets. A Shitbata C & E manager named Ikara Hyru came to Seattle last week to meet with Federated-Boeing and Aztechnology officials. Their purpose was to create a plan for the final phase of the probe construction project and to coordinate their efforts. An intercepted communication indicates that Hyru has completed his plan and will be returning to Shibata Head Offices in Japan via a commercial sub-orbital flight leaving Sea-Tac airport at 6:20am tomorrow morning. A F-B communication was intercepted indicating that a prototype for the drones that will be delivered by the Kepler probe is to be constructed at the F-B factory in Renton. The construction of the drone will be done sometime during the night and will be picked up by F-B courier tomorrow morning at 8am and bring it to the F-B Auburn R&D lab for analysis and testing. A third intercepted communication came from the "office" of Harry Raine, an Aztechnology Manager. The communication was from his secretary, Maria Veracruz, indicating that she had received the data package concerning the Kepler probe, but that Mr. Raine was out of the office for the evening. She will deliver the package to him first thing when he arrives at work the following morning at 8am. From there, the runners are to formulate their own plans on retrieving the three targets. Chrome gives the runners a contact number where they can arrange delivery of the various items. Initial payment will be made upon delivery of each of the items, with the "secrecy" bonus to be awarded three days later, conditionally. The players can ask for up to 30,000 up front.
Wrap-up
Lastly, I often write up some notes on the conclusion of the run as well as possible repercussions. In this case the main thing to note is if any of the corps are aware of the theft(s) they will be extremely unhappy. Any of the three will assign a team to find the item/data that was stolen and the team that perpetrated the theft. Aztechnology in particular is a dangerous foe to anger. If the runners had left any evidence behind that could be used to link them to the theft they could be in for a reprisal.
Karma Awards:
1 Karma for each target retrieved
1 Karma for each target retrieved without the owner knowing it was stolen
Optional discretionary awards for particularly ingenious actions
NOTE: I realize this means this run could result in a 6+ Karma award. Normally, I keep my Karma awards in the 3-5 range. However, I'm actually not expecting that they will be able to retrieve all three items without being spotted. There are just too many places where 1 Glitch could ruin the show. However, if they manage to pull it all off, I'll pass out the 6 Karma, I didn't try to make it easy on them.
Now that the details of all the subsequent scenes are set, this is usually where I go back and design the first scene, which is almost always "the meet" with the Johnson. The players will be contacted by their Fixer to meet with the Johnson they know as "Chrome" (for his two obvious cyberlimbs) at about 5:30pm. The Meet will take place in Chrome's favored location: some god-forsaken hole in the Redmond Barrens. At the meet Chrome will ask them if they are interested in a job to gather critical data in a short period of time, with a great deal of discretion on their part. Due to their past successes, he's putting a lot of faith in them for a job on this short notice. When (if?) the players accept he will give them the details as he knows it. By random chance, his "sources" have learned of 3 lucrative opportunities to gather critical intelligence on the Kepler probe. The problem is: the opportunity to hit all 3 targets will expire after tonight. Chrome will give the players all the information he has on the 3 targets and they are to hit any number of them that they choose. The Pay is
30,000 (upped from my first estimates) per target retrieved, with a bonus of 50% if (after 3 days time) his sources indicate the target corp was not aware of the theft. Here is what Chrome knows of the 3 targets. A Shitbata C & E manager named Ikara Hyru came to Seattle last week to meet with Federated-Boeing and Aztechnology officials. Their purpose was to create a plan for the final phase of the probe construction project and to coordinate their efforts. An intercepted communication indicates that Hyru has completed his plan and will be returning to Shibata Head Offices in Japan via a commercial sub-orbital flight leaving Sea-Tac airport at 6:20am tomorrow morning. A F-B communication was intercepted indicating that a prototype for the drones that will be delivered by the Kepler probe is to be constructed at the F-B factory in Renton. The construction of the drone will be done sometime during the night and will be picked up by F-B courier tomorrow morning at 8am and bring it to the F-B Auburn R&D lab for analysis and testing. A third intercepted communication came from the "office" of Harry Raine, an Aztechnology Manager. The communication was from his secretary, Maria Veracruz, indicating that she had received the data package concerning the Kepler probe, but that Mr. Raine was out of the office for the evening. She will deliver the package to him first thing when he arrives at work the following morning at 8am. From there, the runners are to formulate their own plans on retrieving the three targets. Chrome gives the runners a contact number where they can arrange delivery of the various items. Initial payment will be made upon delivery of each of the items, with the "secrecy" bonus to be awarded three days later, conditionally. The players can ask for up to 30,000 up front.Wrap-up
Lastly, I often write up some notes on the conclusion of the run as well as possible repercussions. In this case the main thing to note is if any of the corps are aware of the theft(s) they will be extremely unhappy. Any of the three will assign a team to find the item/data that was stolen and the team that perpetrated the theft. Aztechnology in particular is a dangerous foe to anger. If the runners had left any evidence behind that could be used to link them to the theft they could be in for a reprisal.
Karma Awards:
1 Karma for each target retrieved
1 Karma for each target retrieved without the owner knowing it was stolen
Optional discretionary awards for particularly ingenious actions
NOTE: I realize this means this run could result in a 6+ Karma award. Normally, I keep my Karma awards in the 3-5 range. However, I'm actually not expecting that they will be able to retrieve all three items without being spotted. There are just too many places where 1 Glitch could ruin the show. However, if they manage to pull it all off, I'll pass out the 6 Karma, I didn't try to make it easy on them.
I just learned that 6 players have confirmed for the first sessions, scheduled for tomorrow night. That's why I upped the reward to 30k, so it works out to a base 5k per runner, per item. Look for a report of the first session before the weekend is out.
At this point if anyone has comments/questions on how I came up with some of my ideas or anything about the development of the run, feel free to ask.
At this point if anyone has comments/questions on how I came up with some of my ideas or anything about the development of the run, feel free to ask.
If anyone is interested, I've uploaded a PDF of the full notes that I'm going to use when I run this session. I'm a pretty improvisational GM, so I just run from some quick point-form notes. You can view my run notes here.
Forward
Ok, before I start posting the recap of the first sessions I'm going to set up the "purpose" here. My intention behind doing this thread was to give tips to other GM's by showing them how I develop an adventure, and then run it for my players. I'm hoping that other GM's will be able to get something out of seeing how a I develop a run and then how I respond to player actions when I run it. From this perspective, the recap of our first sessions, as follows, focuses on my perspective as GM, my thinking behind what I do, and how I respond to the players. I hope some of you find this useful. Feel free to post questions if you have any.
Session 1
December 13th, 2008 - 3 hours
The team for this run:
Reaper - a pistol-wielding, super-stealthy, elf adept
Unbeliever - human hacker, loves to play pranks on other team members
Reso - Latin Ork drone rigger, chronically ill when not in his nice, clean, vehicles
Cruiser/Bruiser - troll tank/brawler, likes to play AR games when not "working"
Pedro - human magician (Christian Theurgist), also a Catholic Priest
Primus - human sammie/combat monster, ex-UCAS Army, now on the run
The run began as I have nearly all of my runs start: with the group members being called by their fixer, a portly Troll named "Tiny." However, what was unusual about this call was that it happened in the afternoon (5:30pm). Tiny told them that this was a job from "Chrome" the Johnson who had employed them on the last run (and one other prior to that). He was again asking the team to meet him in some god-forsaken corner of the barrens, and again, when the team arrived he appeared unarmed and unguarded, yet completely comfortable. He told the team that he needed them for immediate employment for a target of opportunity. I laid out the information from "The Meet" (above). Several players took copious notes (they're good about that) and asked a couple good questions ("Do we have to steal the original drone?" "No, a copy will be sufficient.").
After the meet was done I asked them, "Ok, it's now 6pm. What do you do?" As was my fear, I saw blank stares looking back at me. I could tell just from those looks that I was going to have to give some nudges to get the guys going in the right direction. Now I should take this opportunity to say that this group is made up of (with one exception) Shadowrun rookies. Consequently, in order to keep the game fun and moving forward for them, I tend to be generous with "you would know this" kind of GM hints. So, after a moment of blank stares the players started to discuss with each other and attempt to formulate a plan. As I had hoped, the promise of the 50% bonus for stealth was enough to entice them to try that method. However, I was hearing a lot of plans that ended with "...and then we blow it up" (mainly from Primus). After a few minutes a got a couple requests to do Data Searches, which is not a bad place to start. Now, I'm of the opinion as GM that a Data Search on the "public" Matrix doesn't get you any confidential information but it can get you some basic info to get you going in the right direction. Unbeliever decides to search for information about the woman from target 3: Maria Veracruz. Well, she's just another corporate drone among many so I wasn't going to give him much there beyond what he already knows, but I do tell him he has managed to find a picture of her, which is important later. Second, Reso searches for the manager from target 1: Ikara Hyru. He rolls fairly well so I tell him that he finds a bunch of info on previous projects this guy has supervised, lots of high-profile construction projects all around the Pacific Rim. He's become somewhat of a celebrity among the crowd of "big construction projects" and he appears to be the best that Shibata Construction & Engineering has right now. At this point Reso decides that this must mean he is staying in the best hotel in town and decides he wants to try and hack the hotel's system. I called for him an Intuition test, as this is my usual mechanic for GM "common sense hints." He rolled 2 hits so I let him know that trying to hack every hotel's registry is going to be a wild-goose chase, and is not likely to be productive. Next Reso decides to switch his attention to the drone prototype. They know its being moved from the Renton facility to the Auburn facility (this Chrome told them) so he decides he needs more info on the who's going to be moving it, so he asks to hack Federated-Boeing's head office system. Hmm. Another common sense check and another "that's not a productive idea" from me. Finally, he decides it would be a good idea to head over to the Renton facility and scope it out with his drones. Now we're getting somewhere. I put Reso on "pause" and moved my attention back to the other guys who were waiting to do something new. I mention this to remind GM's to "attention switch" between players doing individual actions while running this sort of legwork/surveillance portion of an adventure. Try not to let yourself get too focused on one player's actions and leave everyone else out in the cold. Some people may say I railroaded Reso a bit, but I think the kind of "tips" I was giving him are helpful to a new player as they avoid wasting time and frustrating the player when their character may have known that they were undertaking a fool's errand, but the player doesn't.
Ok, before I start posting the recap of the first sessions I'm going to set up the "purpose" here. My intention behind doing this thread was to give tips to other GM's by showing them how I develop an adventure, and then run it for my players. I'm hoping that other GM's will be able to get something out of seeing how a I develop a run and then how I respond to player actions when I run it. From this perspective, the recap of our first sessions, as follows, focuses on my perspective as GM, my thinking behind what I do, and how I respond to the players. I hope some of you find this useful. Feel free to post questions if you have any.
Session 1
December 13th, 2008 - 3 hours
The team for this run:
Reaper - a pistol-wielding, super-stealthy, elf adept
Unbeliever - human hacker, loves to play pranks on other team members
Reso - Latin Ork drone rigger, chronically ill when not in his nice, clean, vehicles
Cruiser/Bruiser - troll tank/brawler, likes to play AR games when not "working"
Pedro - human magician (Christian Theurgist), also a Catholic Priest
Primus - human sammie/combat monster, ex-UCAS Army, now on the run
The run began as I have nearly all of my runs start: with the group members being called by their fixer, a portly Troll named "Tiny." However, what was unusual about this call was that it happened in the afternoon (5:30pm). Tiny told them that this was a job from "Chrome" the Johnson who had employed them on the last run (and one other prior to that). He was again asking the team to meet him in some god-forsaken corner of the barrens, and again, when the team arrived he appeared unarmed and unguarded, yet completely comfortable. He told the team that he needed them for immediate employment for a target of opportunity. I laid out the information from "The Meet" (above). Several players took copious notes (they're good about that) and asked a couple good questions ("Do we have to steal the original drone?" "No, a copy will be sufficient.").
After the meet was done I asked them, "Ok, it's now 6pm. What do you do?" As was my fear, I saw blank stares looking back at me. I could tell just from those looks that I was going to have to give some nudges to get the guys going in the right direction. Now I should take this opportunity to say that this group is made up of (with one exception) Shadowrun rookies. Consequently, in order to keep the game fun and moving forward for them, I tend to be generous with "you would know this" kind of GM hints. So, after a moment of blank stares the players started to discuss with each other and attempt to formulate a plan. As I had hoped, the promise of the 50% bonus for stealth was enough to entice them to try that method. However, I was hearing a lot of plans that ended with "...and then we blow it up" (mainly from Primus). After a few minutes a got a couple requests to do Data Searches, which is not a bad place to start. Now, I'm of the opinion as GM that a Data Search on the "public" Matrix doesn't get you any confidential information but it can get you some basic info to get you going in the right direction. Unbeliever decides to search for information about the woman from target 3: Maria Veracruz. Well, she's just another corporate drone among many so I wasn't going to give him much there beyond what he already knows, but I do tell him he has managed to find a picture of her, which is important later. Second, Reso searches for the manager from target 1: Ikara Hyru. He rolls fairly well so I tell him that he finds a bunch of info on previous projects this guy has supervised, lots of high-profile construction projects all around the Pacific Rim. He's become somewhat of a celebrity among the crowd of "big construction projects" and he appears to be the best that Shibata Construction & Engineering has right now. At this point Reso decides that this must mean he is staying in the best hotel in town and decides he wants to try and hack the hotel's system. I called for him an Intuition test, as this is my usual mechanic for GM "common sense hints." He rolled 2 hits so I let him know that trying to hack every hotel's registry is going to be a wild-goose chase, and is not likely to be productive. Next Reso decides to switch his attention to the drone prototype. They know its being moved from the Renton facility to the Auburn facility (this Chrome told them) so he decides he needs more info on the who's going to be moving it, so he asks to hack Federated-Boeing's head office system. Hmm. Another common sense check and another "that's not a productive idea" from me. Finally, he decides it would be a good idea to head over to the Renton facility and scope it out with his drones. Now we're getting somewhere. I put Reso on "pause" and moved my attention back to the other guys who were waiting to do something new. I mention this to remind GM's to "attention switch" between players doing individual actions while running this sort of legwork/surveillance portion of an adventure. Try not to let yourself get too focused on one player's actions and leave everyone else out in the cold. Some people may say I railroaded Reso a bit, but I think the kind of "tips" I was giving him are helpful to a new player as they avoid wasting time and frustrating the player when their character may have known that they were undertaking a fool's errand, but the player doesn't.
Switching back to the other guys, they decide its time to call some contacts, and because they want information fast, they decide to give them a little nuyen to "grease the wheels." Good plan. Pedro calls up a Mafia Soldier contact (he's a Sicilian Catholic Priest, did I mention that?) and get him to ask around about the Maria Veracruz girl, he throws him 1,500. Cruiser decides to call up Tiny and have him check on Ikara Hyru: where is he staying and when is he leaving? Cruiser throws Tiny 1,800. I mentally give the Veracruz information a Threshold of 8 on the "ask around" test, as she's a fairly visible figure at Dante's (Pedro sent his contact the picture they had of her). The Mafia Soldier has a Connection 1, so I'm rolling 2 dice but I throw in another 3 as a bonus due to the picture and the bribe. For Tiny, with a Connection 4, I'm rolling 8 dice and I throw in 4 due to the bribe. The Hyru information is hard to come-by, however, so I set the Threshold at 12. I make the extended test at an interval of 1 hour, getting both of them on the 3rd round in each case. I told them it was 6pm when they called the contacts, so they're going to get back to them at 9pm. Timing is important in this run so I wanted to make sure to keep track of it carefully.
Now back to Reso at the F-B Renton factory. He's still really focused on getting that shipping information, and he figures (correctly) that he can do it from this facility. He sends in his GTS Tower drone so that he can sit in his van a few kilometers away and do the hacking from there. At first, he sets the drone in a high orbit over the facility and gives it a visual check. One Perception test later (with 5 hits), and he can see that the factory grounds look pretty dead except for a few drones patrolling. At this point he wants to Hack the facility computer, but (unknown to him) he's still not in range to get directly into the Admin node. I tell him that the only node he detects for the facility is labeled "Federated-Boeing Renton Factory System Access - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY." I also add, "that seems like a big scary chokepoint to you." I also throw in the hint, "but that's the only node you can detect from about 500 meters above the facility." Finally, he gets the hint to bring the Tower in closer. He jumps into the drone to get a good Infiltration test, and I roll the patrolling drone's Perception to spot him. Reso wins handily and now has the Tower hover just above the roof. Now Reso can detect 2 new nodes: Administration and Security. Fearing the system is formidable, he calls Unbeliever over to do the Hack. Unbeliever scoots over, via the Matrix, and hacks the Administration node. Firewall 3 against a Hacker throwing 14 dice in Hot-Sim for Hacking on the Fly. No problem getting in. By now the team is hoping they can grab some "blueprints" for the drone, make a copy and be done with this one. I'm not making it so easy. After looking through the system (a Data Search test), I tell them that there are no "blueprints" here and that all manufacturing appears to be done with the "Controller" node, as information in this node indicates. So, now they knew they needed to get into the Controller node and it couldn't be accessed from where they were. Unbeliever does another quick Data Search and pulls up a map of the facility which indicates where the "Controller" office is located. Reso decides he wants to send in a drone for a closer look so he launches a Fly-Spy from the Tower (that Tower is a very useful drone) and sends into the factory through a vent in the roof. He has to Edge a Piloting test in order to get the 3 hits he needs, but he does it. After getting in he finds the controller office and notices that it has 1 door, locked with a fingerprint reader maglock, and he cannot detect any wireless node, even when right next to the room. So now they know they need to get inside in order to access it. The players start to formulate a plan to do this, and they're on the right track, Reso pulls out his Fly-Spy back to the Tower, and Unbeliever is about to log out of the system. However, in all of the scouting of the Controller room Reso has forgotten the original reason he wanted to access that Administration node. I ask him, "Aren't you forgetting to do something?" Nope, he can't remember. So (being the nice GM that I am) I let his character make a Memory Test. He gets 3 hits so I say, "What about the pickup schedule?" Oh yeah! Unbeliever grabs the pickup schedule and copies it to Reso.
We had a good laugh at this moment due to Unbeliever's AR icon. He calls it "Big Sexy" because it looks like a "well endowed" Minotaur, wearing nothing but a cape and a bow-tie. The comedy came when I described how the "Big Sexy" icon might visually represent "depositing" information to another character, and then reminded everyone that (if you're connected to your Commlink through DNI), you're getting a full sensory experience. I believe "yuck" was the general feeling around the table.
Now back to Reso at the F-B Renton factory. He's still really focused on getting that shipping information, and he figures (correctly) that he can do it from this facility. He sends in his GTS Tower drone so that he can sit in his van a few kilometers away and do the hacking from there. At first, he sets the drone in a high orbit over the facility and gives it a visual check. One Perception test later (with 5 hits), and he can see that the factory grounds look pretty dead except for a few drones patrolling. At this point he wants to Hack the facility computer, but (unknown to him) he's still not in range to get directly into the Admin node. I tell him that the only node he detects for the facility is labeled "Federated-Boeing Renton Factory System Access - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY." I also add, "that seems like a big scary chokepoint to you." I also throw in the hint, "but that's the only node you can detect from about 500 meters above the facility." Finally, he gets the hint to bring the Tower in closer. He jumps into the drone to get a good Infiltration test, and I roll the patrolling drone's Perception to spot him. Reso wins handily and now has the Tower hover just above the roof. Now Reso can detect 2 new nodes: Administration and Security. Fearing the system is formidable, he calls Unbeliever over to do the Hack. Unbeliever scoots over, via the Matrix, and hacks the Administration node. Firewall 3 against a Hacker throwing 14 dice in Hot-Sim for Hacking on the Fly. No problem getting in. By now the team is hoping they can grab some "blueprints" for the drone, make a copy and be done with this one. I'm not making it so easy. After looking through the system (a Data Search test), I tell them that there are no "blueprints" here and that all manufacturing appears to be done with the "Controller" node, as information in this node indicates. So, now they knew they needed to get into the Controller node and it couldn't be accessed from where they were. Unbeliever does another quick Data Search and pulls up a map of the facility which indicates where the "Controller" office is located. Reso decides he wants to send in a drone for a closer look so he launches a Fly-Spy from the Tower (that Tower is a very useful drone) and sends into the factory through a vent in the roof. He has to Edge a Piloting test in order to get the 3 hits he needs, but he does it. After getting in he finds the controller office and notices that it has 1 door, locked with a fingerprint reader maglock, and he cannot detect any wireless node, even when right next to the room. So now they know they need to get inside in order to access it. The players start to formulate a plan to do this, and they're on the right track, Reso pulls out his Fly-Spy back to the Tower, and Unbeliever is about to log out of the system. However, in all of the scouting of the Controller room Reso has forgotten the original reason he wanted to access that Administration node. I ask him, "Aren't you forgetting to do something?" Nope, he can't remember. So (being the nice GM that I am) I let his character make a Memory Test. He gets 3 hits so I say, "What about the pickup schedule?" Oh yeah! Unbeliever grabs the pickup schedule and copies it to Reso.
We had a good laugh at this moment due to Unbeliever's AR icon. He calls it "Big Sexy" because it looks like a "well endowed" Minotaur, wearing nothing but a cape and a bow-tie. The comedy came when I described how the "Big Sexy" icon might visually represent "depositing" information to another character, and then reminded everyone that (if you're connected to your Commlink through DNI), you're getting a full sensory experience. I believe "yuck" was the general feeling around the table.
After that short diversion the players were back to planning their intrusion into the facility. They were still attempting to be stealthy so that automatically meant that Reaper would be the point man on the intrusion, with Primus coming along (he has a decent Infiltration skill too) for backup in case things go wrong. They're planning on Pedro casting Improved Invisibility on both of them. At this point Pedro decides it might be a good idea to Astrally scout the factory since they're planning on going in with an active spell effect. Good idea. I just make him make one Astral Perception test and tell him that the building appears to be Warded, and he sees a couple bound Spirits zooming around on patrol, but they have a lot of ground to cover. They will probably be able to get in, plus Reaper has the Cloak power which does state that it helps against detection by Spirits.
Now, shifting my attention back to the technical characters, I was still hearing a lot of talk about "blueprints." At this point I asked what knowledge skills they had. Reso has Engineering and Auto Mechanics so I have him roll them both. With 4 hits on the Auto Mechanics I say that he has somewhat of an idea how a Drone Factory like this might work. The system will not contain a "blueprint" of the item, just a series of instructions to the drone on how to construct the item. They can steal those instructions, but they will be useless in trying to tell what the item is actually like. Now, I've stumped them again, and I can see they need a slight nudge towards the critical idea of having the factory create a second prototype. So, when Reso decides he going to take a closer look at the pickup schedule they copied from the Admin node, I decide to drop my hint: "The pickup schedule just shows the ID of the item, the IDs of the vehicle and people that are authorized to pick it up, and it says quantity 1." Props to Reaper for finally clicking in, "Just tell it to make another one!" Now the team was rolling, they started to talk about this idea and decided that they needed to steal the copy without the system actually record that it had made a copy. So, now they know that they need to get into the Controller, and tell it to make a second prototype without touching the inventory records on the Administration node.
So, with it now being about 7pm the players decide to wait a couple of hours until the facility is good and quiet. That means its time for their contacts to call them back (remember that?). Pedro's Mafia Soldier tells him that it took awhile, but he finally got word from one of the Mafia's drug dealers that recognized Maria Veracruz. I tell them that Maria is heavy into the club scene, spends most of her nights at Dante's, indulges fairly regularly in substances, and that it's not unusual for her to take home someone from the club. So, they decide to make preliminary plans to (possibly) have the Priest (of all people) go into the club and try to go home with her (possibly with the help of some Magic). Then Tiny calls Cruiser back and tells him that he's got the skinny on this "corp guy" but the info wasn't easy to come by and he needs to be "reimbursed." Cruiser gives him an extra 2k and he gets the lowdown. Federated-Boeing is treating this Hyru guy like royalty. They gave him an apartment in "boeingville" to stay at, as well as a personal bodyguard for the whole time he's staying in Seattle. Sources say that Boeing is going to babysit him all the way to the airport to ensure that nothing goes wrong. They are putting a lot of pride in this probe project.
Now, shifting my attention back to the technical characters, I was still hearing a lot of talk about "blueprints." At this point I asked what knowledge skills they had. Reso has Engineering and Auto Mechanics so I have him roll them both. With 4 hits on the Auto Mechanics I say that he has somewhat of an idea how a Drone Factory like this might work. The system will not contain a "blueprint" of the item, just a series of instructions to the drone on how to construct the item. They can steal those instructions, but they will be useless in trying to tell what the item is actually like. Now, I've stumped them again, and I can see they need a slight nudge towards the critical idea of having the factory create a second prototype. So, when Reso decides he going to take a closer look at the pickup schedule they copied from the Admin node, I decide to drop my hint: "The pickup schedule just shows the ID of the item, the IDs of the vehicle and people that are authorized to pick it up, and it says quantity 1." Props to Reaper for finally clicking in, "Just tell it to make another one!" Now the team was rolling, they started to talk about this idea and decided that they needed to steal the copy without the system actually record that it had made a copy. So, now they know that they need to get into the Controller, and tell it to make a second prototype without touching the inventory records on the Administration node.
So, with it now being about 7pm the players decide to wait a couple of hours until the facility is good and quiet. That means its time for their contacts to call them back (remember that?). Pedro's Mafia Soldier tells him that it took awhile, but he finally got word from one of the Mafia's drug dealers that recognized Maria Veracruz. I tell them that Maria is heavy into the club scene, spends most of her nights at Dante's, indulges fairly regularly in substances, and that it's not unusual for her to take home someone from the club. So, they decide to make preliminary plans to (possibly) have the Priest (of all people) go into the club and try to go home with her (possibly with the help of some Magic). Then Tiny calls Cruiser back and tells him that he's got the skinny on this "corp guy" but the info wasn't easy to come by and he needs to be "reimbursed." Cruiser gives him an extra 2k and he gets the lowdown. Federated-Boeing is treating this Hyru guy like royalty. They gave him an apartment in "boeingville" to stay at, as well as a personal bodyguard for the whole time he's staying in Seattle. Sources say that Boeing is going to babysit him all the way to the airport to ensure that nothing goes wrong. They are putting a lot of pride in this probe project.
So, that information gets put on the shelf for later and the team turns their attention back to the factory. However, the team realizes that they still have a lot of security to deal with: cameras outside and inside the facility, guards, and door locks. After some quick discussion they decide to take the risk and have Unbeliever hack the main Security system. This is where things get interesting. First of all, at Firewall 5 and Analyze 5, the Security Node is no slouch, plus there's going to be patrolling IC once he gets in. Unbeliever makes his tests and manages to get User access on the first try, and good thing for him because I rolled 4 hits on my first test, so he would have almost certainly been caught had it gone to a second roll. Now, this was an unusual session for Unbeliever because he usually rolls really well, especially on the Hacking stuff, but tonight just wasn't his night (He was sitting on a different side of the table than he normally was, and the rest of the team kept telling him to switch back). First up he wanted to "feedback loop" the cameras all along the path to the Controller office: 1 in the loading dock, 1 in the storage area, 1 in the factory area, and 1 in the Controller office. Since this is not an "authorized" action he's rolling Hacking + Edit vs. the Firewall + Analyze (for most actions in the Matrix, that's my standard fallback test) of the node. His first 2 attempts fail, getting no more than 2 hits on 12 dice. I decide its time for the IC to make a pass so I roll its Pilot + Analyze (10 dice) and Unbeliever opposes with Hacking + Stealth (Matrix Perception, BBB pg. 217). Unbeliever wins and stays hidden for the moment. He tries a third time for the camera (still just the first one) and still only rolls 2 hits, fortunately I only roll 1 on the opposition so he loops the camera. Now he Browses for the next one in the route and prepares to Hack the second. I decide its time for the IC to make another pass, and this time it spots him. I tell Unbeliever to make a Matrix Perception test, which he gets 2 hits on, so I tell him that he notices a patrolling program (which looks like a Surveillance Drone) has locked on to him and appears to be paying a great deal of attention to what he is doing, though it isn't doing anything itself. This IC's job is to cruise the system and try to catch anyone doing something "fishy." Unbeliever things for a moment then decides to try and crash the IC before moving on to the other cameras (it isn't running an Armor program). He whacks it with his Attack program (which looks like Big Sexy wielding his manhood as a weapon), and only manages to score 6 net hits. The IC is damaged but now knows its under attack and promptly puts the system on Active Alert.
I had previous decided that when this goes on Alert it will call the on-duty Security Spider which will arrive at the beginning of the next IP. Unbeliever knows he's in a bind now. First he quickly decides (wisely) to finish of the IC before anyone else spots him. Now, the way I play things, when you are running a Stealth program, any other program/persona that wants to spot you needs to beat you in the opposed perception test. If a "friendly" icon has already spotted the intruder, then they provide a bonus to the test (which would give the Security Spider +4 in this case), but spotting you is not automatic. So, Unbeliever whacks the IC one more time, finishing it off, then quickly logs off of the system. Unknown to him, the Security Spider arrives and starts looking for what set the system on Alert. He knows the IC was crashed so he comes loaded up to find and fix any problems: Attack, Armor, Analyze, Edit, and Trace. This turns out to be a tactical error on his part. Now, Unbeliever wants to Hack back into the system at Administrator Access so that he can shut down the alarm and undo the damage. That becomes a hefty Threshold 15 (5 Firewall + 6 Admin + 4 Active Alert), with the node opposing with 14 dice (5 Firewall + 5 Analyze + 4 Active Alert). Unbeliever is rolling better now, getting to 15 in 3 rolls, but the system easily gets the 5 hits before he breaks in. That means the Spider is waiting for him. What follows is some unbelievable luck on Unbeliever's part. When he enters the system he knows its on Alert and that the Spider has spotted him (since the system's Firewall spotted him breaking in). The Spider makes a Perception test on Unbeliever to check his program load. He's not carrying anything lethal, so the Spider doesn't change his programs. Unbeliever on his action, shuts down his Attack (in my games that's a Free Action) and loads up Black Hammer (a Complex Action). The spider, not believing he is in physical danger, begins a Trace on Unbeliever but with only 5 dice (Computer 5 + Trace 5 – 5 Stealth), it's going to take awhile to get to 10 hits. Unbeliever then gives the poor Spider the most enormous whack of Black Hammer: 7 hits, and the Spider only gets 2 hits on his opposed roll. Since the poor guy isn't running a Biofeedback Filter he's resisting 10P (Black Hammer 5 + 5 Net Hits) with 4 dice. Amazingly he gets 3 hits, and "only" eats 7 boxes. Now, the Spider looks at his situation: 7 boxes of damage, no Biofeedback Filter, and even if he loads it up now he's going to have to stand and take another hit. He decides to retreat and call in reinforcements, so he decides to log off. Looking back now, I realized that I totally missed the fact that he would have needed to succeed on an opposed Willpower test in order to do that, but no matter.
With the system secure, Unbeliever cancels the Active Alert, which I still make him make a Computer + Edit test to accomplish, but since he is now authorized to do this I just make it a Threshold 2 test. Now, Unbeliever is new to the Matrix in Shadowrun (though he's doing quite well), so I give him the tip that it would be wise now to cancel every other account on the system to force the system owners to have to Hack into their own system. He thought that was a very nasty/nifty idea. Also, now that he's got Administrator rights, modifying any part of the security system takes not test. He tells the rest of the team that they are cleared to go.
I had previous decided that when this goes on Alert it will call the on-duty Security Spider which will arrive at the beginning of the next IP. Unbeliever knows he's in a bind now. First he quickly decides (wisely) to finish of the IC before anyone else spots him. Now, the way I play things, when you are running a Stealth program, any other program/persona that wants to spot you needs to beat you in the opposed perception test. If a "friendly" icon has already spotted the intruder, then they provide a bonus to the test (which would give the Security Spider +4 in this case), but spotting you is not automatic. So, Unbeliever whacks the IC one more time, finishing it off, then quickly logs off of the system. Unknown to him, the Security Spider arrives and starts looking for what set the system on Alert. He knows the IC was crashed so he comes loaded up to find and fix any problems: Attack, Armor, Analyze, Edit, and Trace. This turns out to be a tactical error on his part. Now, Unbeliever wants to Hack back into the system at Administrator Access so that he can shut down the alarm and undo the damage. That becomes a hefty Threshold 15 (5 Firewall + 6 Admin + 4 Active Alert), with the node opposing with 14 dice (5 Firewall + 5 Analyze + 4 Active Alert). Unbeliever is rolling better now, getting to 15 in 3 rolls, but the system easily gets the 5 hits before he breaks in. That means the Spider is waiting for him. What follows is some unbelievable luck on Unbeliever's part. When he enters the system he knows its on Alert and that the Spider has spotted him (since the system's Firewall spotted him breaking in). The Spider makes a Perception test on Unbeliever to check his program load. He's not carrying anything lethal, so the Spider doesn't change his programs. Unbeliever on his action, shuts down his Attack (in my games that's a Free Action) and loads up Black Hammer (a Complex Action). The spider, not believing he is in physical danger, begins a Trace on Unbeliever but with only 5 dice (Computer 5 + Trace 5 – 5 Stealth), it's going to take awhile to get to 10 hits. Unbeliever then gives the poor Spider the most enormous whack of Black Hammer: 7 hits, and the Spider only gets 2 hits on his opposed roll. Since the poor guy isn't running a Biofeedback Filter he's resisting 10P (Black Hammer 5 + 5 Net Hits) with 4 dice. Amazingly he gets 3 hits, and "only" eats 7 boxes. Now, the Spider looks at his situation: 7 boxes of damage, no Biofeedback Filter, and even if he loads it up now he's going to have to stand and take another hit. He decides to retreat and call in reinforcements, so he decides to log off. Looking back now, I realized that I totally missed the fact that he would have needed to succeed on an opposed Willpower test in order to do that, but no matter.
With the system secure, Unbeliever cancels the Active Alert, which I still make him make a Computer + Edit test to accomplish, but since he is now authorized to do this I just make it a Threshold 2 test. Now, Unbeliever is new to the Matrix in Shadowrun (though he's doing quite well), so I give him the tip that it would be wise now to cancel every other account on the system to force the system owners to have to Hack into their own system. He thought that was a very nasty/nifty idea. Also, now that he's got Administrator rights, modifying any part of the security system takes not test. He tells the rest of the team that they are cleared to go.
The plan is for Reaper and Primus to sneak into the Controller booth. The team assumes (correctly) that the Controller booth/node is isolated from the rest of the system, so any Hacking of that system will have to happen from inside. Unbeliever has a handy Agent (rating 4) loaded up with a nice array of programs for just such a situation: Exploit, Stealth, Browse, and Edit. Reaper decides to carry the Agent on his Commlink and will be the one to deploy it on the Controller system. Unbeliever gives the agent a "script" of instructions to: 1) Hack the Controllers system, 2) Give the node instructions to build a second Prototype drone, to be completed immediately before the original, at 1 am, 3) Alter the system log to erase any trace that the build order was given, 4) Return to your original node. Now, I guided the player through making these decisions because he didn't know all the nuts and bolts, but he understood the concept of what he was trying to do, which is the important part. From there, I can talk him through the rules.
So, with the Security system subverted (for now) the team decides to move in. Pedro casts the Invisibility spells and Reaper and Primus move in. The two quickly move to the fence line, Unbeliever shuts down the electricity, they scale it, and cut the razorwire on top with some wire cutters (they told me they were brining some). They hop down on the other side and proceed to the loading dock entrance. I do a couple quick Perception checks for the guard and drone, but they can't even beat the spell. Unbeliever unlocks the door for them and they head into the building. At this point, Pedro needs to drop the spell because of the building's Ward, so Reaper and Primus will have to rely on old-fashioned sneaking from here on out. They quickly proceed to the factory floor with some kick-all Infiltration rolls (5 hits for Primus and 7 hits for Reaper - did I mention he was sneaky?). At this point I decide its time for the 2-man guard patrol to show up. I tell the two of them to make an auditory Perception test. Now, prior to this Primus made a point of telling me that he was putting in his Ear Buds with their Enhanced Hearing and Spatial Recognizer (since he's forgotten to put them in for the previous 3 missions), so he had no problem hearing the guards walking and talking, even over the noise of the construction drones. His Spatial Recognizer gave him an exact location of the sound on his AR display. After notifying Reaper (at first he thought he had to use hand signals, until he was reminded that his implanted Commlink could be controlled with his mind), the two decide to quickly head up the stairs and duck inside the controller office. Unbeliever opened the door lock and the two duck inside. I have both of them make Infiltration rolls opposed by the Guards' Perception, but with the Guards getting a "distracted" penalty, they are easily beaten on the test.
Now inside the Controller room, they lose contact with everyone else on the team except the two of them (wireless inhibiting walls). They were expecting that, so Reaper activates the Agent against the system. I make Reaper roll for the Agent, 8 dice in 4 different tests. Since there's no way for them to know how well the Agent did, I don't tell them. After a few seconds the Agent returns to Reaper's link and tells him that it's done. A few more Infiltration rolls later and the two have made it out to the fence without being spotted. Pedro is out of sight in the team's van so he's wasn't able to reestablish the Invisibility. They need to make one last roll to get away without being seen. Reaper makes his roll and does awesome (as usual), but then Primus rolls: 1 hit (and no more Edge). The nearest Guard rolls 2 hits on the Perception check, and hears Primus make a very ungraceful *thump* when he hits the ground on the other side of the fence. Seeing two suspicious people loitering near the fence line he decides to saunter over and have a look. Unbeliever, being a quick thinking guy, sees the situation developing and sets off a security sensor in the system. The guard, seeing the security sensor trip decides to go off and check that instead. Primus and Reaper slip away into the night and back to the team's van.
That's where we stopped for the evening. The team is on their way now and starting to formulate some good plans for accomplishing the run, though I'm still hearing comments about "Plan B(ullets)." Things may get interesting by the end.
So, with the Security system subverted (for now) the team decides to move in. Pedro casts the Invisibility spells and Reaper and Primus move in. The two quickly move to the fence line, Unbeliever shuts down the electricity, they scale it, and cut the razorwire on top with some wire cutters (they told me they were brining some). They hop down on the other side and proceed to the loading dock entrance. I do a couple quick Perception checks for the guard and drone, but they can't even beat the spell. Unbeliever unlocks the door for them and they head into the building. At this point, Pedro needs to drop the spell because of the building's Ward, so Reaper and Primus will have to rely on old-fashioned sneaking from here on out. They quickly proceed to the factory floor with some kick-all Infiltration rolls (5 hits for Primus and 7 hits for Reaper - did I mention he was sneaky?). At this point I decide its time for the 2-man guard patrol to show up. I tell the two of them to make an auditory Perception test. Now, prior to this Primus made a point of telling me that he was putting in his Ear Buds with their Enhanced Hearing and Spatial Recognizer (since he's forgotten to put them in for the previous 3 missions), so he had no problem hearing the guards walking and talking, even over the noise of the construction drones. His Spatial Recognizer gave him an exact location of the sound on his AR display. After notifying Reaper (at first he thought he had to use hand signals, until he was reminded that his implanted Commlink could be controlled with his mind), the two decide to quickly head up the stairs and duck inside the controller office. Unbeliever opened the door lock and the two duck inside. I have both of them make Infiltration rolls opposed by the Guards' Perception, but with the Guards getting a "distracted" penalty, they are easily beaten on the test.
Now inside the Controller room, they lose contact with everyone else on the team except the two of them (wireless inhibiting walls). They were expecting that, so Reaper activates the Agent against the system. I make Reaper roll for the Agent, 8 dice in 4 different tests. Since there's no way for them to know how well the Agent did, I don't tell them. After a few seconds the Agent returns to Reaper's link and tells him that it's done. A few more Infiltration rolls later and the two have made it out to the fence without being spotted. Pedro is out of sight in the team's van so he's wasn't able to reestablish the Invisibility. They need to make one last roll to get away without being seen. Reaper makes his roll and does awesome (as usual), but then Primus rolls: 1 hit (and no more Edge). The nearest Guard rolls 2 hits on the Perception check, and hears Primus make a very ungraceful *thump* when he hits the ground on the other side of the fence. Seeing two suspicious people loitering near the fence line he decides to saunter over and have a look. Unbeliever, being a quick thinking guy, sees the situation developing and sets off a security sensor in the system. The guard, seeing the security sensor trip decides to go off and check that instead. Primus and Reaper slip away into the night and back to the team's van.
That's where we stopped for the evening. The team is on their way now and starting to formulate some good plans for accomplishing the run, though I'm still hearing comments about "Plan B(ullets)." Things may get interesting by the end.
Well, I appear to be getting a bunch of views on this thread, but no one has any questions?
I really like your "Gamemaster's Notes" blog and it DOES help me.
While I am a fairly experienced gamemaster (have been playing various RPGs for 10+ years) I am still rather new to SR. Most importantly, up until now SR has always been the secondary or even tertiary RPG, thus my background knowledge is limited and it is difficult for me to capture the "feel" of SR, sometimes. The same goes for the 4th edition rules. Reading your way of preparing for an adventure and the runs, dealing with players and the not always clear rules is very useful for me.
Especially the hacking part starts to make more sense, although it seems to be necessary to make some arbitrary rulings as GM, as a lot of things are not covered too well.
And, no questions
I read it as a blog ... not as a traditional thread.
cheers
Lance
While I am a fairly experienced gamemaster (have been playing various RPGs for 10+ years) I am still rather new to SR. Most importantly, up until now SR has always been the secondary or even tertiary RPG, thus my background knowledge is limited and it is difficult for me to capture the "feel" of SR, sometimes. The same goes for the 4th edition rules. Reading your way of preparing for an adventure and the runs, dealing with players and the not always clear rules is very useful for me.
Especially the hacking part starts to make more sense, although it seems to be necessary to make some arbitrary rulings as GM, as a lot of things are not covered too well.
And, no questions
I read it as a blog ... not as a traditional thread.cheers
Lance
I too have read this as a blog.
- J.
- J.
Really great, I might annex some of this for my own use! I imagine this'll be a major boon to new GM's and new players alike, too. +1 Karma.
Thanks for the comments everyone. I was starting to wonder if anyone was actually reading it all. I realize the "wall of text" might be intimidating because I tend to really crank up the word count when I get going on something.
In many ways I think this was intentional. In previous editions the rules tried to cover "all" things that a player might want to do in a system and the rules just started to get really bloated and complicated. When I read the SR4 Matrix rules I saw them as a breath of fresh air because things were undefined. As I see it, you can break down Matrix stuff in basically 3 tests:
1) Breaking In - as described on BBB pg. 221
2) Changing Something - use Computer + Edit if the Account is "authorized" to do this, Hacking + Edit if not opposed by the Nodes Firewall + Analyze; I just made up this part but it seemed reasonable to me
3) Finding Something - Data Search + Browse, this is an extended test against a Threshold set by the GM
IMO, these are the 3 things that your Hacker PC is going to be doing most commonly, so you can run pretty much everything with those 3 tests. If the System beats him on any particular test, I just saw "Access Denied" and they can try again (though the attempt will be noted in the system's Access Log). If the Hacker glitches on any test, they set off an Alarm, and you have +4 Firewall from then on. If you want to make the system tougher, make periodic tests by some IC program, or by the Node on a Matrix Perception Test (BBB pg. 217). If the Node/IC wins the test then the Hacker is spotted and you can do whatever you want from there. The biggest thing to keep in mind with SR4's Matrix is that there is no "right" way to play it.
Stop thinking of running the Matrix like a "computer simulation" and run it more like a "real world" encounter. People ask lots of questions about the SR4 Matrix like "how often do I make Perception tests for patrolling IC?" "What happens when the player is spotted?" "How does the system respond?" The answer to all of these is: whatever you want! Think of it this way: instead of a computer system, imagine the Hacker is sneaking into some corporate office. Now ask yourself "How often should I roll to see if a patrolling guard spots the character?" Well, whenever you think the guard has an opportunity to spot the character. "What happens when the guard spots the character?" Well, maybe he'll sound an alarm right away, maybe he'll stop and ask for ID, maybe he'll just keep an eye on the player but not interfere. All of these are right answers for a "meat" NPC guard as well as an IC guard.
@Yoan: Feel free to pillage ideas. That's why I posted it.
QUOTE (Lance @ Dec 17 2008, 07:06 AM) 
Especially the hacking part starts to make more sense, although it seems to be necessary to make some arbitrary rulings as GM, as a lot of things are not covered too well.
In many ways I think this was intentional. In previous editions the rules tried to cover "all" things that a player might want to do in a system and the rules just started to get really bloated and complicated. When I read the SR4 Matrix rules I saw them as a breath of fresh air because things were undefined. As I see it, you can break down Matrix stuff in basically 3 tests:
1) Breaking In - as described on BBB pg. 221
2) Changing Something - use Computer + Edit if the Account is "authorized" to do this, Hacking + Edit if not opposed by the Nodes Firewall + Analyze; I just made up this part but it seemed reasonable to me
3) Finding Something - Data Search + Browse, this is an extended test against a Threshold set by the GM
IMO, these are the 3 things that your Hacker PC is going to be doing most commonly, so you can run pretty much everything with those 3 tests. If the System beats him on any particular test, I just saw "Access Denied" and they can try again (though the attempt will be noted in the system's Access Log). If the Hacker glitches on any test, they set off an Alarm, and you have +4 Firewall from then on. If you want to make the system tougher, make periodic tests by some IC program, or by the Node on a Matrix Perception Test (BBB pg. 217). If the Node/IC wins the test then the Hacker is spotted and you can do whatever you want from there. The biggest thing to keep in mind with SR4's Matrix is that there is no "right" way to play it.
Stop thinking of running the Matrix like a "computer simulation" and run it more like a "real world" encounter. People ask lots of questions about the SR4 Matrix like "how often do I make Perception tests for patrolling IC?" "What happens when the player is spotted?" "How does the system respond?" The answer to all of these is: whatever you want! Think of it this way: instead of a computer system, imagine the Hacker is sneaking into some corporate office. Now ask yourself "How often should I roll to see if a patrolling guard spots the character?" Well, whenever you think the guard has an opportunity to spot the character. "What happens when the guard spots the character?" Well, maybe he'll sound an alarm right away, maybe he'll stop and ask for ID, maybe he'll just keep an eye on the player but not interfere. All of these are right answers for a "meat" NPC guard as well as an IC guard.
@Yoan: Feel free to pillage ideas. That's why I posted it.
Please excuse the near necroposting.
Did writing this make your fingers hurt? Damn, info overload. I appreciate you going through the trouble though, this'll be very useful considering my near ten years away from RPGs, much less GMing.
Oh, and finish the story. I wanna know what happened. Edge of my seat and all that.
Did writing this make your fingers hurt? Damn, info overload. I appreciate you going through the trouble though, this'll be very useful considering my near ten years away from RPGs, much less GMing.
Oh, and finish the story. I wanna know what happened. Edge of my seat and all that.
QUOTE (Tachi @ Jan 6 2009, 05:33 AM)
Please excuse the near necroposting.
Did writing this make your fingers hurt? Damn, info overload. I appreciate you going through the trouble though, this'll be very useful considering my near ten years away from RPGs, much less GMing.
Oh, and finish the story. I wanna know what happened. Edge of my seat and all that.
Did writing this make your fingers hurt? Damn, info overload. I appreciate you going through the trouble though, this'll be very useful considering my near ten years away from RPGs, much less GMing.
Oh, and finish the story. I wanna know what happened. Edge of my seat and all that.
I type all day at my job (computer programmer) so typing all of this is nothing to my fingers. I'm glad you are finding it useful. I realize the "wall of text" is going to drive some people away, so I did my best to break it up into paragraphs and such.Rest assured I'll post the rest of the run once we actually play it.
Get your group to meet and play I am still looking forward to the upcoming stories. I am posting this, just in case you lack the motivation to continue without some encouragement.
Cheers, Lance
I am still looking forward to the upcoming stories. I am posting this, just in case you lack the motivation to continue without some encouragement.Cheers, Lance
It's not for lack of motivation on my part, trust me. The problem is scheduling. We all have jobs and a couple of us (myself included) have a wife and kids. This weekend has already been ruled out, so we'll try again next weekend.
In the meantime, I'll make a shameless plug for Maxmahem's Shadowrun podcasts, which are recordings of his Shadowrun sessions. I've been enjoying listening to them and his GM style seems fairly similar to mine.
In the meantime, I'll make a shameless plug for Maxmahem's Shadowrun podcasts, which are recordings of his Shadowrun sessions. I've been enjoying listening to them and his GM style seems fairly similar to mine.
QUOTE
Now, this was an unusual session for Unbeliever because he usually rolls really well, especially on the Hacking stuff, but tonight just wasn’t his night (He was sitting on a different side of the table than he normally was, and the rest of the team kept telling him to switch back).
God I love roleplayers' superstitions! My favorite that I've seen is when a guy was doing a pivotal thing that only he could do, "Dude you roll like crap when you roll the dice on the table. . . Roll them on the book! (his next rolls) SEE! The few dice that went off the book were crap there! Roll them all on the book man!" Now the player starts beleiving this superstition tells the GM that only dice that end up ON THE BOOK will count and the rest will be rerolled on the book. To which the GM gets a very amused look on his face and shakes his head "No". Now the player starts trying to keep them on the book in earnest and through the rest of the night most of the other players start do figure out where their dice rolls best. Man that was amusing to me!
Oh, finish the story!
BTW I'm just starting to play SR but I have been a big Star Wars GM loads of times and you seem to run a lot like me as well. The more complex and advanced a game system the more loosely you can plan your games. At least if you want to keep the players thinking that they aren't getting railroaded into doing ONLY the actions that you planned for, they hate that. I generally just come up with the plan just like what you did except I don't plan out the needed rolls. I just keep them in mind and when the player does them I eyeball what seems right and it seems to work for my group. Sometimes when it is something that is really variable and hard to imagine I'll come up with a "Formula" for a variable difficulty, IE D3 +2 difficulty. This works well too.
After you summed up the AZT Pyramid I came up with the ultimate drone to actually infiltrate those places despite wireless canceling paint and such. I'm not sure of what name I'm going to give it but I am definately going to build it. Potential names are "Poop-Chute", "Pipe-Snake" or "Fecal Ferret" come to mind. The idea is to infiltrate through the human waste disposal pipes. The drone would be some kind of snake that could swim very well, magnetic feet and grappler, and would carry a spool of micro fiberoptic cable until it got as close as it could to the source. I'm thinking the big wig would have his own bathroom or one nearby. The night before I would have slipped some tasteless tracking powder or radioactive dye that the woman would imbibe in her alchoholic drink. Then because you always have to pee a lot after a night of drinking the drone could follow the trail of excrement to the bathroom near her office and act as a wired repeater so that you could infiltrate with other drones, commanded wirelessly through the "Snake" as the wireless router. A few chameleonic drones with a matrix jack would do the rest and perhaps provide a distraction to get her away from her desk. I don't mind sharing this because they would have no time to build this drone and hence not help your players if they read it.
I hope you like my idea. Am I right in thinking that this is probably the least defended, if at all, route into a building that secure?
QUOTE (Graushwein @ Jan 12 2009, 03:59 PM)
BTW I'm just starting to play SR but I have been a big Star Wars GM loads of times and you seem to run a lot like me as well.
The very first RPG I ever learned and GM'd was the old Star Wars D6 system by West End Games. I'm still running sessions for that system to this day, it holds a special place in my heart.
QUOTE (Graushwein @ Jan 12 2009, 03:59 PM)
I hope you like my idea. Am I right in thinking that this is probably the least defended, if at all, route into a building that secure?
I doubt even AZT spends a great deal of security resources guarding against "poop snakes."
EDIT: I will most certainly finish the story as soon as we actually play that portion of it. The scheduling of our group members has been off lately.
I've been a fan of SR since 1st edition, although when I actually played the most 2nd edition was current. A friend of mine and I dusted off our SR:TCG cards recently and had a blast playing. We starting to think about trying to get some friends together and play SR. So I picked up 4th edition and now I'm pretty eager to play a few sessions.
However, I was having trouble wrapping my head around the new Matrix. I've been reading posts around here, trying to find useful information on how things work amongst the "this is whats cool/this is what sucks about the Matrix mechanics" discussions (I've made a lot of Computer + Data Search rolls I gather). I came across this thread and although it took a while before I actually got down to reading it I found it to be amazingly helpful. Seeing how it all plays out has been an immense help. Post #15 in particular answered more Matrix questions than anything else I've come across. I also like your GMing style, and your tips will be useful if we can actually get everyone together to play. Thanks for the effort!
However, I was having trouble wrapping my head around the new Matrix. I've been reading posts around here, trying to find useful information on how things work amongst the "this is whats cool/this is what sucks about the Matrix mechanics" discussions (I've made a lot of Computer + Data Search rolls I gather). I came across this thread and although it took a while before I actually got down to reading it I found it to be amazingly helpful. Seeing how it all plays out has been an immense help. Post #15 in particular answered more Matrix questions than anything else I've come across. I also like your GMing style, and your tips will be useful if we can actually get everyone together to play. Thanks for the effort!
Not a problem chainsawash! When I made this thread I was hoping to provide the exact sort of help that you said you got out of it, so I'm happy.
QUOTE (chainsawash @ Jan 15 2009, 11:49 AM)
However, I was having trouble wrapping my head around the new Matrix. I've been reading posts around here, trying to find useful information on how things work amongst the "this is whats cool/this is what sucks about the Matrix mechanics" discussions (I've made a lot of Computer + Data Search rolls I gather).
The matrix isn't too hard if your not going to be hacking. For general use there isn't too much to it. HOWEVER, if you are going to be hacking you should:
A) Bring your work IT security administrator to tell you what actions and skills to do in order to accomplish hacking tasks.
OR
B) Read the Unwired book. It is incredibly in depth about how everything works. There is still A LOT of information in it, but it would really help a non computer geek / IT person know how to play a hacker.
I'd be GMing the game so I wanted to make sure I have a firm grasp on how it works, and how to run systems. I understood the rules as fragments, but it was the "now what the heck do I actually do with all this as GM" that was eluding me. I work as a SQA engineer and write java test suites so I understand software, but I must admit when it comes to IT and networking I probably only have 1 die in my pool.
I noticed Amazon is selling Catalyst published SR books for $23 so I just ordered Unwired, as well as Arsenal and Augmentation since I was there.
I noticed Amazon is selling Catalyst published SR books for $23 so I just ordered Unwired, as well as Arsenal and Augmentation since I was there.
I've yet to actually play a game of Shadowrun (the Corebook+Arsenal are currently on their way), but I've been browsing these forums in anticipation of doing so. This thread has been an awesome tool for understanding what goes into a campaign, both planning and running, from the gamemaster's perspective.
Thanks Malachi, our small group (just me, my fiance, and my cousin) will certainly appreciate this even more once we settle in and start trying to play ourselves, seeing as how we have no actual tabletop experience. Can't wait to see how it ends. I even registered just so I could add on to the others' my personal hopes that you'll continue the thread once you get around the scheduling troubles.
-Jonny
Thanks Malachi, our small group (just me, my fiance, and my cousin) will certainly appreciate this even more once we settle in and start trying to play ourselves, seeing as how we have no actual tabletop experience. Can't wait to see how it ends. I even registered just so I could add on to the others' my personal hopes that you'll continue the thread once you get around the scheduling troubles.
-Jonny
Alright, don't ever think that posting on a forum doesn't change anything! I let the guys know that they have "internet fans" to appease now, so the next session of this adventure is scheduled to run this Friday. I'll try to have the summary up shortly after the weekend.
QUOTE (Malachi @ Jan 19 2009, 10:08 AM)
Alright, don't ever think that posting on a forum doesn't change anything! I let the guys know that they have "internet fans" to appease now, so the next session of this adventure is scheduled to run this Friday. I'll try to have the summary up shortly after the weekend.
Looking forward to it.
-Jonny
My apologies to anyone waiting for an update on this thread. We did indeed play another session last week but I haven't had the time to write up a summary yet. All of my extra time has been used up helping CGL on a project (which will hopefully be announced soon, I can't say anything about it until then). On a positive note, we were all able to schedule another session for tonight (2 weeks in a row, it's amazing!), and I'm going to try really hard to get the adventure resolved in tonight's session. Thanks for reading!
Wooo Hooo! Give me some more ideas ta steal. 
QUOTE (Malachi @ Jan 30 2009, 12:46 PM)
My apologies to anyone waiting for an update on this thread. We did indeed play another session last week but I haven't had the time to write up a summary yet. All of my extra time has been used up helping CGL on a project (which will hopefully be announced soon, I can't say anything about it until then). On a positive note, we were all able to schedule another session for tonight (2 weeks in a row, it's amazing!), and I'm going to try really hard to get the adventure resolved in tonight's session. Thanks for reading!
Hey, hey... what are you doing posting here? Don't you have work to do? Nose, grindstone, etc etc...
Are you going to make me stay up until 2am again? (grumbles and goes back to work)
Session 2
January 23rd, 2009 - 3.5 hours
The team is the same for this session, here's the recap if you don't want to scroll up:
Reaper - a pistol-wielding, super-stealthy, elf adept
Unbeliever - human hacker, loves to play pranks on other team members
Reso - Latin Ork drone rigger, chronically ill when not in his nice, clean, vehicles
Cruiser/Bruiser - troll tank/brawler, likes to play AR games when not "working"
Pedro - human magician (Christian Theurgist), also a Catholic Priest
Primus - human sammie/combat monster, ex-UCAS Army, now on the run
Ironically, despite the near one-month break between sessions the weather for this session was just a frigidly cold as is was last time we played. As I was pulling into the host's house my car got stuck in the heavy snow approaching his driveway, so Reaper (the host) and Reso got an extra Karma promised for pushing the GM's car out of the snow. After that little hiccup, we got on with the session. Not a whole lot of action happened in this session, it ended up being mostly planning and "legwork" type stuff. However, for a run emphasizing tight timing and stealth as this one did, it is not surprising that the bulk of the work (and the tension) came in what is normally the "planning" phase of the run rather than the "execution." If the "planning" is done thoroughly and properly, the execution should be the last, and easiest part, right? Despite having no combat (which some would consider a "boring" session), it was still fun and included and included an extended social scene in my favorite location: Dante's Inferno.
January 23rd, 2009 - 3.5 hours
The team is the same for this session, here's the recap if you don't want to scroll up:
Reaper - a pistol-wielding, super-stealthy, elf adept
Unbeliever - human hacker, loves to play pranks on other team members
Reso - Latin Ork drone rigger, chronically ill when not in his nice, clean, vehicles
Cruiser/Bruiser - troll tank/brawler, likes to play AR games when not "working"
Pedro - human magician (Christian Theurgist), also a Catholic Priest
Primus - human sammie/combat monster, ex-UCAS Army, now on the run
Ironically, despite the near one-month break between sessions the weather for this session was just a frigidly cold as is was last time we played. As I was pulling into the host's house my car got stuck in the heavy snow approaching his driveway, so Reaper (the host) and Reso got an extra Karma promised for pushing the GM's car out of the snow. After that little hiccup, we got on with the session. Not a whole lot of action happened in this session, it ended up being mostly planning and "legwork" type stuff. However, for a run emphasizing tight timing and stealth as this one did, it is not surprising that the bulk of the work (and the tension) came in what is normally the "planning" phase of the run rather than the "execution." If the "planning" is done thoroughly and properly, the execution should be the last, and easiest part, right? Despite having no combat (which some would consider a "boring" session), it was still fun and included and included an extended social scene in my favorite location: Dante's Inferno.
Since it had been so long we spent the first 10 or 20 minutes reviewing the parameters of the run and what the group had done so far to get everything back into everyone's "short term" memory. Normally, I don't like to have such a long wait period between sessions, especially ones involving as much planning on the players' part as this one, but the Christmas break kind of forced the issue. So, the players picked up right where they left off: Reaper and Primus had just finished their narrow escape infiltrating the Federated-Boeing factory, Reso was waiting with his SUV to pick them up, and Unbeliever was still sitting, firmly in control of the factory's computer systems. Now that Reaper and Primus had broken in and uploaded the orders to build a second drone prototype, all that remained was to alter the records in the Administration node to make the pickup by Reso seem completely legitimate. This meant altering the system's pickup records so that Reso could simply drive in, present his ID, and pickup the drone without anyone being the wiser. However, it was quickly determined that Unbeliever simply couldn't put in a record to pick up the prototype itself because a cursory analysis of the pickup records would show that the drone prototype was picked up by somebody. The team briefly discussed changing the pickup record already present, and then changing it back, but they (correctly) concluded that this would also raise alarms because it would be inconsistent with what that gate guard saw/remembered and possibly any records kept on his verification system. The team (collectively hashing this out, which is wonderfully no longer "meta game" thinking thanks to instant wireless communication in SR4), then determined that what needed to be done was to add a second pickup order for some other item, and then smuggle the copy of the drone prototype out along with it. This was a good idea on their part, so I started to give them some details on how exactly the F-B Facilities computer system was laid out. There is an "Order" table/database, and a separate "Item" table/database which is linked to the Order system via the Item's ID number. Now, someone familiar with normalized, relational database structure will instantly recognize this setup (as several members of the group did) but Unbeliever was not familiar with this setup. So the game stalled for almost half an hour as a few of us (myself included) explained the concept to him. Looking back, it probably would have worked just as well to have him make a Computer + Edit test and "hand wave" the details, but in this particular case I thought it important for everyone to have a clear understanding of what they were doing. The details were this: enter an order for some random item say, a 20 kg box of bolts. Then go into the item database and switch the details for "drone prototype" with "box of bolts" meaning the RFID tag number, and warehouse bin number. The description of the item would remain. When going to the warehouse they could just pick up the item in the appropriate bin as indicated in the order, and when the guard verified the RFID of the item, it would appear to be what was expected. After Reso completed the pickup, simply go back into the system and swap the Item details back. Historical records will simply show that Reso picked up a "box of bolts." After getting all the details hashed out, Unbeliever makes the test and succeeds. However, being the Charisma 1, Incompetent (Etiquette) prankster that he is, he decides to slip "driver is a transvestite" into the "Notes" section of the pickup order. That's jut the kind of guy he is, and I can't really say that he's not playing in character. The action was not unjustified. Reso, having the Asthma quality is quite sensitive to things that are unclean, and Unbeliever with his Squatter lifestyle is almost certainly that (in fact, I reminded the team that in the previous adventure, Unbeliever had lost his clothes (by his own choice) and had replaced them with 5 nuyen vending machine "flats" which he hadn't mentioned that he has replaced just yet). So, Reso announced that after Unbeliever had fallen comatose for full-VR hacking, Reso had dropped him into the nearest dumpster. Cruiser moved to guard Unbeliever's meat bod and informed him via text message of his new lodging, which then lead to the counter-prank by Unbeliever in the order system. So, knowing he'll need to get back into the system later, Unbeliever hacks himself a back door code into the Administration node, which I handle as a Hacking + Edit test. All that remained now was to wait until just after 1am for the drone prototype to be completed, then roll in and pick it up.
With the Drone Prototype target all set, the team turns their attention to Maria Veracruz and the information package they need from Aztechnology. They had learned in the previous session that Veracruz spends most of her evenings at Dante's, living it up and taking "recreational medicines." Padre and Reaper volunteer to head to the club while Primus, Reso, and Cruiser start to brainstorm plans for hitting the Shibata manager en route to the airport. Unbeliever decides its time for his character to take a well-deserved break. Reaper and Padre get dressed up in the best clothes they have resembling "club wear" and head downtown to Dante's. As is normal for the club, there is a large lineup of people wanting to get in and a pair of massive Troll bouncers screening people. Boldly, Padres strides past the line to talk to talk his way past the bouncers and into the club. Not being much of a slick-talker (the group's Face rarely shows up), he doesn't manage to talk his way in. He then decides to show some nuyen to try and grease the wheels, initially offering 500. Now, this little encounter also had an amusing side-show. Primus (the player), who is generally bored with social encounters (and lamenting how long its been since his character fired his weapon) was heckling Padre from across the table to hurry up and get past the bouncers to "get on with it." Because it was amusing I quickly said that some skinny human standing in line was actually doing the heckling to Padre's character (turning the player to player heckling into character to character heckling). This situation produced a good laugh when, after Padre's initial offer of 500 was rejected, he told me his second offer would be 3 times as much (1,500), Primus (as the heckler) shouted "don't screw around just offer him 1,000." To which the Troll bouncer's reply was "nice math idiot" and had him thrown out of line and across the street. Also wanted to expedite the situation, Reaper steps up and offers 3,000 for both he and Padre to get it. Satisfied the bouncer waves them in, much to the annoyance of everyone else waiting in line. Just before ducking inside, Padre says a quick "God bless you" to the Troll, making the sign of the cross. The gain entrance to Dante's just after 10:30pm.
Now, Reaper and Padre head into the always crowded Dante's Inferno in search of Maria Veracruz. I take a few minutes to properly set the scene for them, first by showing them the picture of the inside of Dante's from New Seattle (p. 36), which I have always thought was one of the better pieces of artwork in SR. I set the scene for them by describing the crowded club with its pounding music and exotically-dressed club goers. Padre and Reaper assume (correctly) that Veracruz is not going to be on the top floor, but do a quick sweep just to be thorough. Not finding her, they decide to head down to one of the lower floors (there are 9 floors total). This is where things get interesting. For those that don't know, Dante's is one of the hottest clubs in Seattle and has its own social hierarchy. The more popular someone is with the "regulars" or the "in crowd" of the club, the lower the level they are "allowed" to travel to. Reaper and Padre, being Dante "noobs" are not going to get far. They walk to the ramp leading to the lower level, only to be block by a group of "groupies" hanging around the entrance to the ramp. "Where do you think you're going?" "I have a friend in there." "A lot of people have friends in there. You're just not second floor material, entrance floor." I emphasized the last part of that to let them know that it was supposed to be some kind of local insult. Reaper and Padre try a couple more times to convince the "groupies" to let them down but it is clear that they have no interest in letting them through. In order to get some sort of gauge on the social dynamic Reaper asks me what the lead groupie is wearing. "Clubber clothes" I tell him, "you know, super-trendy stuff." That not being quite what he was looking for, Reaper asks for a more detail description. I didn't have any detailed descriptions prepared in my notes, but I'm quite proud of what suddenly popped into my head: "He's dressed like David Bowie at the end of that movie The Labyrinth; and he's sitting like this - I positioned myself in a "slouch" position in my chair with my knees as far apart as I possibly could. Everyone at the table had a universal "ugh!" reaction, and Reaper announced that his character was leaving to avoid the urge to kick the guy in the nuts right then and there. I'm fairly proud I was able to come up with such a memorable image right on the spot.
Now, Reaper and Padre head into the always crowded Dante's Inferno in search of Maria Veracruz. I take a few minutes to properly set the scene for them, first by showing them the picture of the inside of Dante's from New Seattle (p. 36), which I have always thought was one of the better pieces of artwork in SR. I set the scene for them by describing the crowded club with its pounding music and exotically-dressed club goers. Padre and Reaper assume (correctly) that Veracruz is not going to be on the top floor, but do a quick sweep just to be thorough. Not finding her, they decide to head down to one of the lower floors (there are 9 floors total). This is where things get interesting. For those that don't know, Dante's is one of the hottest clubs in Seattle and has its own social hierarchy. The more popular someone is with the "regulars" or the "in crowd" of the club, the lower the level they are "allowed" to travel to. Reaper and Padre, being Dante "noobs" are not going to get far. They walk to the ramp leading to the lower level, only to be block by a group of "groupies" hanging around the entrance to the ramp. "Where do you think you're going?" "I have a friend in there." "A lot of people have friends in there. You're just not second floor material, entrance floor." I emphasized the last part of that to let them know that it was supposed to be some kind of local insult. Reaper and Padre try a couple more times to convince the "groupies" to let them down but it is clear that they have no interest in letting them through. In order to get some sort of gauge on the social dynamic Reaper asks me what the lead groupie is wearing. "Clubber clothes" I tell him, "you know, super-trendy stuff." That not being quite what he was looking for, Reaper asks for a more detail description. I didn't have any detailed descriptions prepared in my notes, but I'm quite proud of what suddenly popped into my head: "He's dressed like David Bowie at the end of that movie The Labyrinth; and he's sitting like this - I positioned myself in a "slouch" position in my chair with my knees as far apart as I possibly could. Everyone at the table had a universal "ugh!" reaction, and Reaper announced that his character was leaving to avoid the urge to kick the guy in the nuts right then and there. I'm fairly proud I was able to come up with such a memorable image right on the spot.
So, Padre and Reaper decide to step back and think of another strategy to get down (the lack of their slick-talking Face was hurting them here). Reaper decides to head off and see if he can make contact with anyone from the Yakuza that's in the club. I have him roll his Charisma + Etiquette as an extended test with an interval of 10 minutes and a Threshold of 10 (between Average and Hard). Reaper doesn't roll particularly well so it's going to take him almost an hour to find someone. I switch back to Padre. He decides to take a peek in the Astral and see what the place looks like magically. I handle this as one simple Assenssing test. The top floor contains only mundanes and no active spell effects. Looking down through the floors I let him know that (HINT) all the magic seems to be happening on the lower floors. Padre takes the hint and decides that a little display of mystical talent might convince the groupies to let him pass, but what? He thinks about a few options: turn invisible? Sling a fireball? Call up a spirit? All of those he decides are much too strong for the social situation. Padre finally settles on conjuring a watcher and having it manifest over his shoulder. I considered this a reasonable solution to the problem and decided not to hinder them any further in getting to the 4th floor where Veracruz is. So, with a little winged angel hovering on his shoulder, Padre and Reaper head down to floor 4. The fourth floor has its own special entertainment which consists of a magician casting a mass illusion for everyone on the floor to experience. The illusion changes the landscape of the floor almost constantly: one moment they are walking across a narrow stone bridge spanning a deep canyon, next they are on the roof of an enormous tower overlooking Seattle, and the next moment they are walking along the strands of a giant spider web. Padre is able to block the effects of the illusion with his own personal Counterspelling, but Reaper is at the mercy of the (albeit harmless) illusion. A quick Perception check locates Veracruz in a booth hanging out with some of her friends. They are just beginning the "recreation medicine" portion of the evening and are currently lounging around a table, inhaling Bliss. Padre approaches and asks to join them. They are only too willing to accept because he's "a fragging Mage!"
Padre slides into the booth and begins to try and work some information from Veracruz. It becomes clear quite quickly that she's not in the mood to talk about anything work related. In a bit of quick thinking Padre convinces everyone at the table to "get away from work" by giving up their commlinks and putting them on the table. All of the Bliss-happy people at the table comply, and Reaper swipes the commlinks in a flash. Reaper then makes a quick call to Unbeliever (who is a little annoyed at being disturbed from his lounging as he decided to get a free shower and meal at a barrens drop-in center) to hack the commlinks. The low-cost, consumer-grade links are no match for Unbeliever's skills (I don't even make him roll anything after the first) but he finds nothing of interest on the commlinks (though he does copy down the number of a BTL dealer that he finds). The team then spends a few minutes brainstorming how they're going to proceed next. They know now that they're going to need to get into the Aztechnology pyramid downtown, but they need more information. After running through a few ideas, they come to the conclusion that they need to interrogate Veracruz somewhere else than a public club. So, Padre then decides to turn on the charm. He gets everyone to start into the heavier stuff (the BTLs), which they didn't need much convincing doing. He asks Veracruz to dance, and lays it on as thick as he can. After some good roleplaying and smooth talking, Padre finally makes the suggestion that he and Veracruz continue the party somewhere privately. He makes a Con roll at that point, with some heavy bonuses thanks to his good roleplaying and Veracruz's drugged up state. She agrees and they all head back to her apartment in Lower Queen Anne Hill (downtown Seattle). As they're leaving Dante's Reaper (posing as Padre's driver) lets the rest of the team know what's going on. Once up in her apartment Padre wants to being the questioning right away, but Veracruz is quite insistent on completing her business with him first, which includes slotting an "ecstasy" BTL chip with the RAS override turned off. Padre receives a few boxes of stun damage for his trouble, but much later Veracruz is in the "crash" single of her evening's trip. At this point the team springs into action.
Padre slides into the booth and begins to try and work some information from Veracruz. It becomes clear quite quickly that she's not in the mood to talk about anything work related. In a bit of quick thinking Padre convinces everyone at the table to "get away from work" by giving up their commlinks and putting them on the table. All of the Bliss-happy people at the table comply, and Reaper swipes the commlinks in a flash. Reaper then makes a quick call to Unbeliever (who is a little annoyed at being disturbed from his lounging as he decided to get a free shower and meal at a barrens drop-in center) to hack the commlinks. The low-cost, consumer-grade links are no match for Unbeliever's skills (I don't even make him roll anything after the first) but he finds nothing of interest on the commlinks (though he does copy down the number of a BTL dealer that he finds). The team then spends a few minutes brainstorming how they're going to proceed next. They know now that they're going to need to get into the Aztechnology pyramid downtown, but they need more information. After running through a few ideas, they come to the conclusion that they need to interrogate Veracruz somewhere else than a public club. So, Padre then decides to turn on the charm. He gets everyone to start into the heavier stuff (the BTLs), which they didn't need much convincing doing. He asks Veracruz to dance, and lays it on as thick as he can. After some good roleplaying and smooth talking, Padre finally makes the suggestion that he and Veracruz continue the party somewhere privately. He makes a Con roll at that point, with some heavy bonuses thanks to his good roleplaying and Veracruz's drugged up state. She agrees and they all head back to her apartment in Lower Queen Anne Hill (downtown Seattle). As they're leaving Dante's Reaper (posing as Padre's driver) lets the rest of the team know what's going on. Once up in her apartment Padre wants to being the questioning right away, but Veracruz is quite insistent on completing her business with him first, which includes slotting an "ecstasy" BTL chip with the RAS override turned off. Padre receives a few boxes of stun damage for his trouble, but much later Veracruz is in the "crash" single of her evening's trip. At this point the team springs into action.
Padre casts Compel Truth and they begin to ask Veracruz about the details of her work. Through a series of questions the team discovers basically all the information I detailed in "what Veracruz knows" in my run notes: she can access the file, she get can to her workstation after hours, only her datajack can access the workstation, she has an implanted RFID tag, she must turn in her commlink entering the building, and she passes a single guard station with a scanner when entering the building. Padre (smartly) asks about magical security but Veracruz doesn't know anything about it. After learning all of the security information the team starts to debate plans for bypassing it and getting the information they need. They discuss a few options including mind controlling Veracruz and sending her in, but eventually they start to come up with the idea that someone will have to pose as Veracruz and infiltrate the facility. This really interested me as it wasn't something I had thought of them doing. I always enjoy it when my players come up with a creative solution I didn't anticipate. Things are starting to come together for the team, but time is running out.
I coulda done without that 'spread-eagle David Bowie' mental image, but hey, whatever, it's probably just my Y chromosome talking. Put him in a dumpster, huh? Sounds like something I did once after a friend puked in my car (ah yes, memories of being 16 and fall-down drunk). Is it just me or did the catholic priest just seduce someone other than a prepubescent boy? Oh, and while it wasn't a little boy... "You're still going to hell, Padre." Sounds like a VERY interesting group. Keep em coming...
Sounds like a VERY interesting group. Keep em coming...
Padre is an "unorthodox" priest to say the least. I likely won't be able to post the rest until after the weekend as Tiger Eyes has dumped a bunch more stuff in my lap.
Give'er lots of spankies for that and get to work finishing the run.
Session 3
Jan 30th 2009, 4.5 hours
The team is the same for this session, here's the recap if you don't want to scroll up:
Reaper a pistol-wielding, super-stealthy, elf adept
Unbeliever human hacker, loves to play pranks on other team members
Reso Latin Ork drone rigger, chronically ill when not in his nice, clean, vehicles
Cruiser/Bruiser troll tank/brawler, likes to play AR games when not "working"
Pedro human magician (Christian Theurgist), also a Catholic Priest
Primus human sammie/combat monster, ex-UCAS Army, now on the run
The final session of the run finally produced some of the tension due to the tight timeline that I had been hoping for when I conceived the concept for the run. All in all, the guys did very well on 2 out of the 3 targets as far as planning and executing a good plan. I kind of gave them a "mulligan" on the third and final target by glossing over some of the security particulars, especially when it came to dealing with their captive afterwards. This was mostly due to physical time constraints (I wanted this to be the last session and it was getting late), plus the fact that I could tell the guys were getting weary of developing these intricate stealth plans. I'm already planning on giving them a break on the stealth stuff for the next session. So, without further ado, here's a recap of the final session of Three Data Monty.
Reaper, knowing that he needs to get a good disguise in order to impersonate Maria Veracruz, calls up his retired Yakuza boss in order to get a reference to a professional disguise artist. Tanaka, the contact, who is getting up in age is not particularly pleased about being woken up in the middle of the night, but Reaper promises that he will make it up to him later. Tanaka, in response, implies that he will be calling in this favour sometime in the future. Getting the appropriate reference from Tanaka, Reaper heads down, with a fist full of nuyen, to beg the disguise artist to do the work immediately. After agreeing to pay more than double his usual price (2,000), the Yakuza disguise artist gets to work making Reaper look like Maria Veracruz. Reaper gives the disguise artist only one hour to complete his work. I quickly roll a Disguise check and get 3 hits which I remember for later Perception checks. While Reaper is in the makeup chair, the team starts to discuss how they are going to get the files, which are undoubtedly protected, with the wireless inside the building being cut off from the outside. The team quickly decides the Unbeliever must have to go into the building with Reaper, the risk of setting off an electronic alarm while trying to retrieve the file is much to great without him.
Jan 30th 2009, 4.5 hours
The team is the same for this session, here's the recap if you don't want to scroll up:
Reaper a pistol-wielding, super-stealthy, elf adept
Unbeliever human hacker, loves to play pranks on other team members
Reso Latin Ork drone rigger, chronically ill when not in his nice, clean, vehicles
Cruiser/Bruiser troll tank/brawler, likes to play AR games when not "working"
Pedro human magician (Christian Theurgist), also a Catholic Priest
Primus human sammie/combat monster, ex-UCAS Army, now on the run
The final session of the run finally produced some of the tension due to the tight timeline that I had been hoping for when I conceived the concept for the run. All in all, the guys did very well on 2 out of the 3 targets as far as planning and executing a good plan. I kind of gave them a "mulligan" on the third and final target by glossing over some of the security particulars, especially when it came to dealing with their captive afterwards. This was mostly due to physical time constraints (I wanted this to be the last session and it was getting late), plus the fact that I could tell the guys were getting weary of developing these intricate stealth plans. I'm already planning on giving them a break on the stealth stuff for the next session. So, without further ado, here's a recap of the final session of Three Data Monty.
Reaper, knowing that he needs to get a good disguise in order to impersonate Maria Veracruz, calls up his retired Yakuza boss in order to get a reference to a professional disguise artist. Tanaka, the contact, who is getting up in age is not particularly pleased about being woken up in the middle of the night, but Reaper promises that he will make it up to him later. Tanaka, in response, implies that he will be calling in this favour sometime in the future. Getting the appropriate reference from Tanaka, Reaper heads down, with a fist full of nuyen, to beg the disguise artist to do the work immediately. After agreeing to pay more than double his usual price (2,000), the Yakuza disguise artist gets to work making Reaper look like Maria Veracruz. Reaper gives the disguise artist only one hour to complete his work. I quickly roll a Disguise check and get 3 hits which I remember for later Perception checks. While Reaper is in the makeup chair, the team starts to discuss how they are going to get the files, which are undoubtedly protected, with the wireless inside the building being cut off from the outside. The team quickly decides the Unbeliever must have to go into the building with Reaper, the risk of setting off an electronic alarm while trying to retrieve the file is much to great without him.
So, now that they know Unbeliever needs to get into the building they start working on plans to get him in safely. At this point Unbeliever went off on a strange (but amusing) tangent. First, Unbeliever suggest that he be smuggled in inside of a purse carried by Reaper. Now, casting aside the fact that the "purse" would need to be the size of a very large backpack or gym bag, the team already knows that Veracruz passes through "some sort of scanner" on her way into the building. "Excuse me m'am, there's a man inside of your purse." Even though that plan was quickly discounted, Unbeliever decided he had found a work around, and suggested that he be placed inside of a cow inside of a purse. This caused a good amount of laugher on the part of everyone else in the group as the scanner would still pick up a problem: "Excuse me m'am, there's a man inside of the cow inside of your purse." So, after that amusing diversion, the group goes back to some more reasonable planning. In a previous interrogation of Veracruz the group had asked (I remembered) if a "guest" could accompany her into the office after hours and the answer was: yes. So, the group has decided that Unbeliever needs to be her "escort" for the evening. However, getting him into this role is quite a challenge. Unbeliever has a Squatter Lifestyle and very much enjoys his role as the group "bum." Cleaning him up to be presentable in a corporate setting, and getting him a SIN for that matter, was going to be quite a challenge.
The first thing to deal with was clothing. On a previous run, Unbeliever had acquired a good "mafia suit" for use in infiltrating a restaurant that was never used. So, that could definitely be used. Next, they need to clean up him and get him looking (and smelling) not so much like a street bum. So, they found an automated "cleaning booth" and forced Unbeliever to sit in it and get himself cleaned up. While Unbeliever was getting cleaned up and Reaper was still in the makeup chair, Cruiser headed out for some supplies. He picks up a set of 'trodes for use to connect to Veracruz's workstation, since they need a device that matches the ID of her datajack. Cruiser also swings around and picks up some Armored Clothing, since Reaper can't go in with his normal armor jacket, and a fingertip storage unit, as a possible method for smuggling the data out of the building.
Next, they need to get Unbeliever some Identification as they are their SINs will undoubtedly be checked by the security officer when they enter the building. This is a problem because Unbeliever doesn't have a SIN. So, after finishing makeup, Reaper puts a call in to a Yakuza contact who had sold them some fake SINs on a previous run. The problem is: they need something right now. Basically, I was going to let Reaper make one availability roll of Etiquette + Charisma and see what they get. He's willing to pay double for the SIN so that gives him a +4 DP bonus (+100%, with +1 DP per 25%). Reaper doesn't have Etiquette so he's just defaulting to Charisma with the +4 bonus. He also throws in Edge because this is important. After closing his eyes and rolling the dice he ends up with 6 hits: enough for a Rating 2 SIN. Not having any other options, they take the SIN and hope that it holds out against the scanners. However, it's going to be a giant risk because they'll be heading into Aztechnology's Northwest Headquarters with their cover story riding on a Rating 2 Fake SIN. This was exactly the sort of tension that I wanted when originally designing the adventure.
The first thing to deal with was clothing. On a previous run, Unbeliever had acquired a good "mafia suit" for use in infiltrating a restaurant that was never used. So, that could definitely be used. Next, they need to clean up him and get him looking (and smelling) not so much like a street bum. So, they found an automated "cleaning booth" and forced Unbeliever to sit in it and get himself cleaned up. While Unbeliever was getting cleaned up and Reaper was still in the makeup chair, Cruiser headed out for some supplies. He picks up a set of 'trodes for use to connect to Veracruz's workstation, since they need a device that matches the ID of her datajack. Cruiser also swings around and picks up some Armored Clothing, since Reaper can't go in with his normal armor jacket, and a fingertip storage unit, as a possible method for smuggling the data out of the building.
Next, they need to get Unbeliever some Identification as they are their SINs will undoubtedly be checked by the security officer when they enter the building. This is a problem because Unbeliever doesn't have a SIN. So, after finishing makeup, Reaper puts a call in to a Yakuza contact who had sold them some fake SINs on a previous run. The problem is: they need something right now. Basically, I was going to let Reaper make one availability roll of Etiquette + Charisma and see what they get. He's willing to pay double for the SIN so that gives him a +4 DP bonus (+100%, with +1 DP per 25%). Reaper doesn't have Etiquette so he's just defaulting to Charisma with the +4 bonus. He also throws in Edge because this is important. After closing his eyes and rolling the dice he ends up with 6 hits: enough for a Rating 2 SIN. Not having any other options, they take the SIN and hope that it holds out against the scanners. However, it's going to be a giant risk because they'll be heading into Aztechnology's Northwest Headquarters with their cover story riding on a Rating 2 Fake SIN. This was exactly the sort of tension that I wanted when originally designing the adventure.
Now, Reaper was done his disguise and was a reasonably good visual copy of Maria Veracruz, but one detail remained. How where they going to get him to speak like her? I didn't want this hurdle to totally derail the run (plus they had been doing so well at this point) so I gave them a little tip. They could record Veracruz's voice, then play it back through a hidden microphone that Reaper could hide in his mouth. Reaper could select prerecorded phrases via mental commands to his Commlink, then lip sync to them as they are spoken. Definitely not a perfect plan but, again, they had to go with what they could do on short notice. So, after giving them the basic concept I let them work out the particulars. Padre cast another Mob Mind spell on Veracruz to have her speak the phrases that they needed. I definitely didn't let the team off the hook at this point, and had them tell me specifically which phrases they were going to prerecord. I didn't want any retroactive "we had her say this" kind of stuff. To their credit, they came up with a lot of good stuff. They recorded things that they knew they were going to need: her name, why she was coming to work so late, Unbeliever's cover identity, simple answers to questions (yes, no, maybe), as well as a couple other common phrases that they thought they might need to get them out of a jam ("please, we'll only be a few minutes").
At this point I change my attention back to the other guys briefly as they seem to have come up with a working plan. It sounds like they want to get in touch with the Halloweeners, the notorious anti-corporate downtown gain, and see if they can help in hitting the convoy as it passes through downtown. Cruiser calls up his Fixer contact (which is shared by most of the group), who is a portly Troll named Tiny. Here I'll divert quickly to say this: contacts play an important roll in Shadowrun and should be more than "vending machines" of information or equipment for the players. I strongly encourage everyone reading this to come up with names and personalities for your contacts: this means GM's and players. If you're a player, make sure you run the contact description by your GM to make sure it all fits. Making contacts come "alive" with flare and colour will add a lot to your Shadowrun game experience, trust me. Feel free to rip off any of my descriptions here, I know it's tough to come up with all the ideas sometimes. Tiny, a Fixer shared by most of the group, is an overweight, out of shape, but very capable fixer. He is usually eating some unhealthy food whenever a member of the team calls him. In this case when he picks up Cruisers call, he's munching on what appears to be a turkey leg (which is probably just krill paste shaped and flavored like turkey, but that's beside the point). While listening to Cruiser's request to find someone in the Halloweeners to talk to, he dips the turkey leg in a bowl of gravy and begins to (sloppily) bunch on the turkey leg. When he mumbles, "I'll see what I can do and get back to you" to Cruiser, gravy and turkey chunks fly out of his mouth. Cruiser promises to buy him a bucket of turkey after the run is over. So, this is one of those "asking around" tests made by a contact (BBB p. 279) so I'm rolling Tiny's Charisma of 4 + Connection 4 against a threshold. I take a quick peek at the Extended Test Difficulties table (BBB p. 58, and on the GM screen) and decide this is "average" so 8, interval 1 hour. I hit my die roller a few times and see that it'll take Tiny 4 hours to get back to Cruiser: 2:30am approximately. I file that away mentally for later.
Now Reaper and Unbeliever seem to be all set to head into the Aztechnology Pyramid to retrieve the data. As one final instruction, Reaper (and the rest of the group) instruct Unbeliever, who has a Charisma 1 and Incompetent (Etiquette), that he is not to speak to anyone. Right around 12:30 am Reaper and Unbeliever head into the employee's entrance of the Aztechnology Pyramid in downtown Seattle. Reaper has Maria Veracruz's Commlink and has assumed her identity, while Unbeliever is disguised as her "escort" for the evening. After a quick exchange with the security guard, who seems to know Veracruz, the group submits their SINs for verification. Veracruz's is a legitimate SIN so I make no roll for that, but Unbeliever's requires a roll. Unbeliever rolls 2 dice for his Fake SIN and decides to add in his Edge for the test. Unbeliever had no luck, unfortunately, getting only 1 hit on the test. Not surprisingly, the scanner the guard is using turns up something unusual. Now it becomes crunch time. The guard notices something strange with the SIN verification ("That's strange..."), and the team knows they need to spring into action. Reaper, as Veracruz begins by stalling the guard with a little flirting: he leans over the table and speaks one of their "delay" phrases ("Please, we'll only be a few minutes.") This causes the guard to look up from his display for a few moments which gives Unbeliever his chance. Obviously, it would look very strange if he were to drop into VR at this moment so he's stuck hacking in AR without his Hot Sim bonus. It takes Unbeliever 3 rounds (9 seconds) to hack his way into the guard's post (using the last of his Edge in the process) and then quickly changes the ID verification software to "ok." During the time Unbeliever gives a "progress bar" to Reaper's commlink/display so that he knows how long to delay the guard. Again, I ask the group what they think a pants-less minotaur icon would use as a "growing progress bar." With the guard's system subverted the two move through the MAD scanner. Since neither of them are carrying any weapons or illegal cyberware they pass without incident. The guard then asks them to turn in their commlinks, which Reaper does. Unbeliever, however, has an internal commlink ("Oh, old school..." says the guard) so the guard pulls out a jamming unit and attaches it to Unbeliever's head. After activating it, Unbeliever loses contact with his internal commlink. The guard informs him that he can return the scanner when they leave the building.
At this point I change my attention back to the other guys briefly as they seem to have come up with a working plan. It sounds like they want to get in touch with the Halloweeners, the notorious anti-corporate downtown gain, and see if they can help in hitting the convoy as it passes through downtown. Cruiser calls up his Fixer contact (which is shared by most of the group), who is a portly Troll named Tiny. Here I'll divert quickly to say this: contacts play an important roll in Shadowrun and should be more than "vending machines" of information or equipment for the players. I strongly encourage everyone reading this to come up with names and personalities for your contacts: this means GM's and players. If you're a player, make sure you run the contact description by your GM to make sure it all fits. Making contacts come "alive" with flare and colour will add a lot to your Shadowrun game experience, trust me. Feel free to rip off any of my descriptions here, I know it's tough to come up with all the ideas sometimes. Tiny, a Fixer shared by most of the group, is an overweight, out of shape, but very capable fixer. He is usually eating some unhealthy food whenever a member of the team calls him. In this case when he picks up Cruisers call, he's munching on what appears to be a turkey leg (which is probably just krill paste shaped and flavored like turkey, but that's beside the point). While listening to Cruiser's request to find someone in the Halloweeners to talk to, he dips the turkey leg in a bowl of gravy and begins to (sloppily) bunch on the turkey leg. When he mumbles, "I'll see what I can do and get back to you" to Cruiser, gravy and turkey chunks fly out of his mouth. Cruiser promises to buy him a bucket of turkey after the run is over. So, this is one of those "asking around" tests made by a contact (BBB p. 279) so I'm rolling Tiny's Charisma of 4 + Connection 4 against a threshold. I take a quick peek at the Extended Test Difficulties table (BBB p. 58, and on the GM screen) and decide this is "average" so 8, interval 1 hour. I hit my die roller a few times and see that it'll take Tiny 4 hours to get back to Cruiser: 2:30am approximately. I file that away mentally for later.
Now Reaper and Unbeliever seem to be all set to head into the Aztechnology Pyramid to retrieve the data. As one final instruction, Reaper (and the rest of the group) instruct Unbeliever, who has a Charisma 1 and Incompetent (Etiquette), that he is not to speak to anyone. Right around 12:30 am Reaper and Unbeliever head into the employee's entrance of the Aztechnology Pyramid in downtown Seattle. Reaper has Maria Veracruz's Commlink and has assumed her identity, while Unbeliever is disguised as her "escort" for the evening. After a quick exchange with the security guard, who seems to know Veracruz, the group submits their SINs for verification. Veracruz's is a legitimate SIN so I make no roll for that, but Unbeliever's requires a roll. Unbeliever rolls 2 dice for his Fake SIN and decides to add in his Edge for the test. Unbeliever had no luck, unfortunately, getting only 1 hit on the test. Not surprisingly, the scanner the guard is using turns up something unusual. Now it becomes crunch time. The guard notices something strange with the SIN verification ("That's strange..."), and the team knows they need to spring into action. Reaper, as Veracruz begins by stalling the guard with a little flirting: he leans over the table and speaks one of their "delay" phrases ("Please, we'll only be a few minutes.") This causes the guard to look up from his display for a few moments which gives Unbeliever his chance. Obviously, it would look very strange if he were to drop into VR at this moment so he's stuck hacking in AR without his Hot Sim bonus. It takes Unbeliever 3 rounds (9 seconds) to hack his way into the guard's post (using the last of his Edge in the process) and then quickly changes the ID verification software to "ok." During the time Unbeliever gives a "progress bar" to Reaper's commlink/display so that he knows how long to delay the guard. Again, I ask the group what they think a pants-less minotaur icon would use as a "growing progress bar." With the guard's system subverted the two move through the MAD scanner. Since neither of them are carrying any weapons or illegal cyberware they pass without incident. The guard then asks them to turn in their commlinks, which Reaper does. Unbeliever, however, has an internal commlink ("Oh, old school..." says the guard) so the guard pulls out a jamming unit and attaches it to Unbeliever's head. After activating it, Unbeliever loses contact with his internal commlink. The guard informs him that he can return the scanner when they leave the building.
Heading up to the 8th floor where Veracruz works, Unbeliever knows he's going to have to get the jammer off of his head somehow if he is to have any hope of getting the files off of the workstation. After stepping out of the elevator he heads for the nearest bathroom he can find. After spotting the cameras in the room, Unbeliever finds a corner out of their view and gets to work. Unbeliever needs to make a Hardware + Logic test to get the jammer off but he has a -4 modifier for having no tools, and I give him another -1 for having to look at himself through a mirror while he works on something on his own head (I was probably being generous there). I decide to make it an (8, 1 minute) Extended Test and right before I start rolling I warn him: "don't Glitch." Five minutes, an no glitches, later Unbeliever has his head jammer taken off. He leaves the bathroom and heads with Reaper to Veracruz's office. Veracruz's desk is in a "waiting room" type area of her boss's office that includes a sofa and coffee table. This provides the perfect situation for Reaper and Unbeliever to pull their "switch-a-roo." Unbeliever sits down on the couch and appears start flipping through some magazines on the coffee table. Reaper (as Veracruz) appears to sit down and begin working on her computer station. In realty, Unbeliever is using a 'trode net which had been previously modified to have the same hardware ID as Veracruz's datajack to log onto the workstation (with her password) while Reaper appears to be doing the work. However, Unbeliever is still doing all of this hacking in AR, and since he is actually connecting to Veracruz's company workstation, he can't run all of his programs like on his commlink. Of course the first question that Unbeliever asks is which of his programs (if any) he can bring onto the workstation. I was probably being too nice again, but I let him bring over up to 4 programs that would run at a rating 4.
In the system Unbeliever has no trouble finding the file package that they are supposed to acquire. Being wisely cautions he decides to check out the file with a Matrix Perception test first. Getting 3 hits I give him 3 crucial pieces of information: it is not encrypted, it has a Data Bomb attached to it, it is marked as Certified Data. I quickly explain what Certified Data is and the parameters for copying it (as I defined way up in the planning section). I also let Unbeliever know that it appears the Data Bomb is set to go off if the files are accessed or copyed in an unauthorized manner, meaning if he fails the Hacking test to copy the files bypassing the protection. Now comes two of the most tense die rolls of the entire run. Unbeliever and Reaper are deep in the Aztechnology Pyramid in downtown Seattle, packed with a full battalion of Jaguar Guards, and the two of them have no weapons to even attempt to fight their way out. Unbeliever needs to make two rolls in a row, failing either of them will mean the intrusion is botched, and his Edge has all been spent. Since he is running AR and his programs are running at rating 4, Unbeliever only has a dice pool of 8 for both of these actions. First he makes a Disarm Data Bomb Test (p. 223 BBB, p. 230 SR4A) which is his 8 dice (Hacking + Disarm) against the program's 8 dice (rating 4 x 2). He succeeds: 1 down, 1 to go. Now he needs to copy the data while bypassing the protection locks on the files. This is a Hacking + Edit (4) Test (p. 95, Unwired), which means Unbeliever needs to roll 50% hits on 8 dice. After a very tense shake of the dice in his hands, Unbeliever rolls 4 hits! So, with the data acquired, Unbeliever and Reaper waste no time in logging off and heading out of the building before they are discovered. Unbeliever heads back into the bathroom to put the jamming device back on his head and reactivate it. They head back down to the employee entrance, and walk out the door with a great sigh of relief. As GM, I could have made this part more difficult with the two of them having to encounter a random guard patrol or other security measures but I felt that the tension was high enough as it was.
In the system Unbeliever has no trouble finding the file package that they are supposed to acquire. Being wisely cautions he decides to check out the file with a Matrix Perception test first. Getting 3 hits I give him 3 crucial pieces of information: it is not encrypted, it has a Data Bomb attached to it, it is marked as Certified Data. I quickly explain what Certified Data is and the parameters for copying it (as I defined way up in the planning section). I also let Unbeliever know that it appears the Data Bomb is set to go off if the files are accessed or copyed in an unauthorized manner, meaning if he fails the Hacking test to copy the files bypassing the protection. Now comes two of the most tense die rolls of the entire run. Unbeliever and Reaper are deep in the Aztechnology Pyramid in downtown Seattle, packed with a full battalion of Jaguar Guards, and the two of them have no weapons to even attempt to fight their way out. Unbeliever needs to make two rolls in a row, failing either of them will mean the intrusion is botched, and his Edge has all been spent. Since he is running AR and his programs are running at rating 4, Unbeliever only has a dice pool of 8 for both of these actions. First he makes a Disarm Data Bomb Test (p. 223 BBB, p. 230 SR4A) which is his 8 dice (Hacking + Disarm) against the program's 8 dice (rating 4 x 2). He succeeds: 1 down, 1 to go. Now he needs to copy the data while bypassing the protection locks on the files. This is a Hacking + Edit (4) Test (p. 95, Unwired), which means Unbeliever needs to roll 50% hits on 8 dice. After a very tense shake of the dice in his hands, Unbeliever rolls 4 hits! So, with the data acquired, Unbeliever and Reaper waste no time in logging off and heading out of the building before they are discovered. Unbeliever heads back into the bathroom to put the jamming device back on his head and reactivate it. They head back down to the employee entrance, and walk out the door with a great sigh of relief. As GM, I could have made this part more difficult with the two of them having to encounter a random guard patrol or other security measures but I felt that the tension was high enough as it was.
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