While Reaper and Unbeliever head off to celebrate, Reso, Primus, and Cruiser head over to the Federated-Boeing facility to pick up the drone prototype (scheduled for 1am). Because of all of the great hacking work done by Unbeliever previously, the actual pickup of the prototype goes relatively smoothly. Reso's SIN and vehicle ID match what the guard expects on his manifest. Though, he does do a double take on Reso after seeing the "transvestite" note that Unbeliever put in the file as a prank ("Huh, I can't tell at all"). Reso does need to use an Edge when his fake SIN gets checked to avoid disaster. After the guard checkpoint they are cleared through to the loading doors at the back of the facility. Primus and Cruiser had acquired some generic coveralls to make them bit the bill of hired hands loading up Reso's van. They load up the drone prototype and head back to the guard checkpoint. Since the broadcast RFID tag on the item they picked up matches what the guard has in his records (thanks to Unbeliever's previous work), they are waived out without further incident. After clearing the facility the teams sends a message to Unbeliever (interrupting his celebrations) that he should go back into the F-B system and undo the previous record-swapping that he had done. Since Unbeliever intentionally left a backdoor into the system for just this occasion he doesn't need a hacking test to get in. From there he makes a quick Edit test to undo what he had done and gracefully logs off. Reso and the other guys safely pull away with the prototype and no one is the wiser. Two targets acquired, with one to go.

Now, I know that Cruiser and the guys were wanting to get the Halloweeners involved in the third leg of the run because I heard them talking about it last session. Strangely enough, the most detailed information about the Halloweeners appears in the SR3 Shadowrun Companion. So, for this session I had the foresight to read up a bit on that info so I could provide some details when needed. In this case, I needed someone significant in the gang but not quite the boss. Fortunately, the book listed several of the gang's top lieutenants. The team takes a little bit a breather until Tiny calls Cruiser back at 2:30am. Tiny managed to get Cruiser an introduction to "Bobby Blue" a Troll lieutenant in the Halloweeners. The meet is at The Big Rhino, a famous restaurant in downtown catering to Ork and Troll tastes. Cruiser heads over to the Rhino and makes a good first impression by tossing the person sitting next to Bobby Blue so Cruiser can take the spot. After indulging in the late-night all-you-can-eat buffet, Cruiser makes his pitch to Bobby Blue to help the group "stick it to the corpers." After making an Etiquette test, Bobbly Blue seems interested enough in the proposal to take Cruiser to see his boss and leader of the Halloweeners: Slash and Burn. I have Cruiser roleplay out the meet as well as make another Etiquette. Cruiser makes a good pitch as well as a good roll so Slash and Burn agrees to help the runners attack the corporate convoy, for a fee. Cruiser pays with Slash and Burn is asking and gives him an ambush point to attack the convoy.

The group loads up on all of their heaviest armor and weaponry in preparation for an attack on the convoy. Padre summons a Spirit of Fire in case they need to call in some big guns. Cruiser takes his motorcycle and goes to stake out the route from "Boeingville" in Everett south to Sea-Tac in Downtown Seattle. At about 6am Cruiser reports that a limo with two escort cars, one leading and one following, is heading south towards downtown. While en route, Cruiser follows behind and messages Unbeliever to try and find and hack the target (Hyru's) commlink. If they're lucky, and they suspect that they aren't, then the data will be accessible on his commlink. Unbeliever, using Cruiser's link as a relay begins searching for accessible signals. Unbeliever first finds Hyru's public commlink and easily hacks it. A quick search determines that there's nothing there. Going back to the original list of nodes that he discovered in the scan, Unbeliever finds a Hidden node and starts to hack it. After a couple of rounds he gains access to the commlink and begins sorting through the data. There is a lot of data there, since this is Hyru's working commlink, but not the information they're looking for. Eventually, Unbeliever finds evidence that a bulk of data has been transferred to an "external storage device." Just as Unbeliever discovers this clue a patrolling IC in Hyru's commlink spots him. Having found the what he needed, Unbeliever quickly logs off of the system. Knowing he's been spotting, Unbeliever wisely takes a few moments to Spoof his Access ID (p. 224 SR4A, p. 224 BBB). Now they know that they'll need to physically extract Hyru and search for the data on some sort of storage device.

As the convoy reaches the ambush point, Cruiser pulls off of the highway so he can reach the ambush point ahead of the convoy. Cruiser sends a message to Slash and Burn that the ambush is a go-ahead. As the convoy reaches the ambush point, Primus launches a grenade at the lead escort car in the convoy. Due to good rolling and heavy armor, the vehicle only takes only 3 boxes of damage. However, the explosion and smoke is enough to cause the driver to slam on the brakes. Unbeliever had the foresight to gain access to the limo's node while hacking it en route to the ambush point. At this time he uses that exploit to activate the emergency brake on the limo grinding it to a sudden halt. The driver of the trailing escort car fails his driving test and promptly slams into the back of the limo.

At that point the convoy is immobilized and the attack begins in earnest. The players, who rolled better in Initiative, all wait to see a sign of an opponent. Trying to figure out what just happened (but having a pretty good idea) some of the Federated-Boeing security guards exit their vehicles and set up for the impending attack. After they emerge, Primus unloads a long burst into the first guard he can spot, dropping him right away. Unbeliever, who still has Admin access to the limo's system, decides to delay the driver from getting out by activating the door locks and deploying the airbag/PPS right in the driver's face. The Halloweeners now start their mad assault on the convoy by lobbing molotov cocktails and spraying the escort vehicles with large amounts of automatic fire from their machine pistols. From a GM perspective, I don't bother rolling any of the actions having to do with the Halloweeners or the F-B guards engaging them. Trying to resolve all of that with the dice mechanics would take far too long and all of it is fairly unimportant from the players' perspective. I know that the F-B guards are outnumbered, but are better trained and equipped. The Halloweeners will be able to hold them pinned down for a few rounds, but soon the F-B guards will start to thin down their numbers and the Halloweeners will retreat. However, for the next few rounds I treat the F-B personnel in the escort vehicles as under the effects of “suppressive fire.� However, the smoke and fire from the Halloweeners makeshift fire grenades does provide a lot of visibility problems should any of the players want to engage the guards in the escort vehicles. That said, none of the PC's really bothered much with the guards in the escort vehicles since they knew their target was in the limo. That was their primary focus.

With the escort vehicles effectively pinned down, Cruiser and Reaper head towards the limo to extract their target. When they approach the limo's back doors, Unbeliever unlocks them and Cruiser flings open the door to head in. Unfortunately, Hyru's bodyguard had an action held, waiting for someone to enter the back of the limo. The instant Cruiser flings open the door he catches a long burst right in the chest. Being the “Troll tank� that he is however, Cruiser is able to shrug it off with only a couple of boxes of damage to show for it. After a brief pause to take 6 bullets in the chest, Cruiser dives into the limo to engage the bodyguard in hand-to-hand combat: his forte. The bodyguard, however, appears extremely well trained and is able to fight Cruiser to a deadlock, while shielding his ability to get to the target. He even manages to put a couple of bursts into Cruiser while fending off his unarmed attacks. All the shooting does is serve to make Cruiser more upset. While engaged in the struggle, Reaper in behind takes a few carefully aimed shots at the bodyguard, around Cruiser, with his Warhawk. However, the heavy body armor manages to hold up well, even against the mighty power of the Warhawk. Primus, getting extremely bored that nothing is proceeding decides to take matters in the limo into his own hands. He sprints the distance to the back door of the van, takes quick aim with his Ares Alpha and promptly liquefies the bodyguard (I believe 17P was the final net damage on that nasty attack). With the bodyguard out of the way, Cruiser quickly renders Hyru unconscious with a swift punch and carries him out of the limo back to Reso's van. In order to avoid leaving behind too much physical evidence of their assault, Primus unloads the remainder of his grenades into the limo. Just as the group is retreating, several aerial attack drones with F-B markings arrive on the scene and begin to make quick work of the lightly armed Halloweeners. To discourage pursuit, Padre sends his Fire Spirit to engage the drones and distract them. The group then all piles into Reso's van (it's actually a luxury SUV) and makes their escape with Hyru.

Now, at this is the point where I very much "accelerated" things because physical time was running short on the session (it was already past midnight). The group has done quite well this session and I didn't want this last little bit to take up too much time. So, after a few Perception checks the group finds that the information is stored in a Data Lock whose port his hidden beneath Hyru's left nipple. Jacking into the port, Unbeliever hacks the device, unlocks the encryption and extracts the data. Now the group has a problem: what do they do with Hyru? Hyru has seen their faces because no one bothered to get any masks or disguises before the attack, so they can't just let him go. Not being total cold-blooded murders, the group doesn't want to just kill him. So, after quickly searching through some books they find a drug called Laes which erases short term memory (about 24 hours). As GM that seemed like a great solution to the problem, so after a few Etiquette rolls I let them acquire some from their fixer. After administering the drug the group sticks the unconscious Hyru into a cab and orders it to deliver him to Sea-Tac so he can catch his flight (maybe). Having gotten everything, they call up the Johnson and arrange for delivery of the items.

Since it is now getting really late, I don't even play out the meet and drop off and skip right to he rewards. The group gets the "stealth" bonus for 2 out of the 3 targets: the drone prototype, and the data package from Aztechnology. That equates to 20,000 nuyen for the run per runner. That is on the higher side of what they've been paid so far in the campaign, but that's okay. I thought the job was particularly challenging, especially from a planning perspective, and the group is starting to gain in reputation and skill. For Karma, they get 2 Karma each for each of the two "stealth" targets, and 1 Karma for the third: so 5 per runner. This is fairly in keeping with the Karma awards I have given out so far.

All in all, I thought the run went fairly well. The group did some excellent planning and problem-solving for 2 out of the 3 targets. Retrieval of the Aztechnology data, in particular, creating just the sort of short timeline tension and drama I was hoping for when I was planning the run. I think the guys enjoyed it, but I also think they've had enough of the passive, sneaky, if-you're-caught-you're-dead kind of runs. I've already got a solid idea for the next run and it's going to involve high speed chases and lots of shooting. That should give them a nice break.

The final session of Three-Data Monty was also a Beta test for a program I've been working on. I've tentatively named it Shadowrun Battle Calculator until I come up with a more exciting name. Basically, it's a program I wrote that tracks, and calculations all the little things that a GM needs to keep track of during a battle. It rolls Initiative for the NPC's and automatically sorts them with the PC's Initiative that I input, and it does all the calculations for resolving Ranged or Melee combat attacks. All I need to do is ask for the "raw data" from the players: how many hits, base damage, and AP of the weapon. Then I simply hit a button and it tells me how much damage the attack caused. I hit one more button and it applies the damage to the NPC and tracks that for me as well. The final fight scene of this run was done with the program and we got through more than 3 full Rounds of combat (9 Initiative Passes) with 5 PC's, and 4 NPC's, in 23 minutes real time. The action stayed quick without the frequent pauses that I need to take while rolling dice and calculating damage and armor penetration. I was able to put in nice little narratives of the action because I didn't need to worry about losing all of the little detail numbers in my head. I still have a few features I'd like to put in the program (adding new participants in the middle of the battle, delayed actions) but overall I'd call the first test of it a resounding success. A more strenuous test will come next session with the combat-heavy run that I have in the works.

This concludes the recap of Three-Data Monty. Enjoy, Dumpshock!

Any comments, questions?

Good ending man. And not throwing anything else at them while they were in the Aztech building was the right thing to do. Once the players make the "Oh my gawd! Fail is instant dead!" rolls, throwing anything else at them leads to them throwing dice (or heavier objects) at you.

Over all your players sound like their a trip and that last part was a good ending to a good run. Even cutting things short at the end isn't a problem, unless you do it almost all the time. Not saying 'you' do that, just for anyone reading. It makes the players really nervious when you do play it out after almost never doing it before.

Thanks man. I like my players because they (for the most part) focus on the story and don't worry about "how awesome their guy is at throwing dice." The closest one to that is Primus, but he even plays up how miserable he is at everything not-combat and it has become a fun character quirk.

Feel free to steal ideas and run your own version of the run. The only thing I ask for in repayment is a story of what happened.

Oh as as for the ending: I have found lately that I too-often have to cut the end of my runs too short. It least to fairly anti-climatic climaxes. In future runs I'm trying to work more on pacing the run. I'm actually going to try and put "time markers" in the notes of my next run based on how long I think the players should be spending on certain parts (eg. 1 hour, 2 hours). That way I can watch the clock and start to speed things up if they are dragging.

Time markers work well, but only after you learn the players and their quirks. Otherwise it feels like a Con Game. The markers are better used by you during the planning, that way you can figure good stopping points and break the mission out over several game sessions without any bad stopping points.

Thank you very much, Malachi, for this nice write-up! Besides being an excellent hint guide for both GMs and players it is also a fun and exciting read. I'm glad I read this now that it is finished - those week-long cliffhangers would've been awful...

Love the write up lots of detail great set ups very impressive

Thanks for the nice comments everyone. I'm glad you enjoyed reading it.

Minor necromancy here, but I gotta tell you this thread is amazing. My group has a noob GM and a handful of noob players and I'm making this mandatory reading for "how a run should be."

Any chance of seeing stuff like this for future runs?

Well, yours is the second vote in as many hours Jon, so I think I can accommodate you.

i also enjoyed this as well, it's always good to get impressions of how other people run their games.

how's the battle calculator coming along? Sounds like a useful tool.

It did quite well in its debut. I'd still like to get a couple more features into it before releasing it to the community. Namely I'd like to get Delayed Actions and New Participants (adding characters in the middle of a combat turn) working.

I recently switched laptops so I'm still getting all my programming tools up and going on the new one, so work has stalled a little at the moment. I was holding off on releasing the Battle Calculator until I gave it at least one more test. The next run I'm planning on running will have much more combat so I figured that would be a good Alpha test for it.

It took me so long to get back to this that I had to reread the first two sessions.

Malachi, since your run notes are no longer available, do you mind if I convert the pertinent parts of this thread to a text file and add it to the growing library of adventures I'm accumulating? Just in case I actually find another RP group out here in the middle of nowhere.

I've created a few runs of my own, but nothing extensive recently, so I'm building a small library of runs to get my skills back before I go into a full arc, in fact I didn't even write the last arc I used. It was a SR conversion of David Weber's In Fury Born... Good book.

Go right ahead. I posted the run so that people would be able to use it somehow.

Firstly, that was a great write up! It was a blast to read.

Second, how is your Combat Calculator coming along? Do you have an app you use for matric tests and such? I was thinking about starting to work on a little app that would allow a PC hacker to quickly roll various Hacking tests against GM laoded commlinks so the other players do not have to sit around while a hacker works on a commlink or node.

Thanks again,
Ryan

Wow, Amazing.

I agree, this has helped my understanding of the Matrix rules more than anything else I've read, and I've worked as a network admin.

slight necro, but this is still a very good thread to give out to people i have passed the link to others in my group as if it was a shadowsea report

I'm going to send a message to Malachi, and post this here as well.

I'm going to start playing with the Shadowrun Returns editor and attempt to incorporate the Three Data Monty run as a downloadable mission for that game. Credit and a link to this page for what is essentially the script will be given to Malachi, and obviously I'm not going to profit from the work.

If, at any time, Malachi contacts me and lets me know that he is not cool with this/does not want his work used, I will of course abide by his wishes and take it down.