Or talk to them after the mes is cleaned up and explain, what they did wrong. You know, maybe those players are his friends and he didn't want to kick them out?
If that doesn't work, try another system. Hackmaster i.e.

Just curious how they managed to get themselves several canisters of a war gas that costs 1,000¥ per dose (i.e., many tens of thousands of nuyen per canister) with 20F Availability. Because maybe it's not the players who suck.

I am greatly disappointed that they sold what could have almost assuredly made them millions of nuyen, and instead released enough nerve gas to wipe out half of Seattle just to kill a cop's family. I r impresd.

Or both?

1 pen'n'paper newbie (weapon specialist), 3 D&D veterans (mage/face, gunslinger adept, and rigger), one WoD player (razorgirl), and one Shadowrun player (technomancer).

I like the idea of contacts getting dried up. I think I'll use that

Since one of the runners has a 6/6 Aztechnology contact (who was also the one whom introduced the team to the arms dealer they bought the grenades from) I think that this won't work very well.

Unfortunately I have already established the cop's brother as a street docter serial murderer who moonlights as a razorboy.

You see, I need a solution that *doesn't* end up with a TPK or nobody having fun anymore. I don't have any kind of problem with my players creating a blood bath (what runner *doesn't* have little 'Mr. Blonde moments'?), I just wish they found a way to *not* increase each runner's Public Awareness exponentialy after each run.

Once again, we are playing an amoral campaign. My problem isn't with what they did, just with thier penchant of appearing on the 6 o'clock news.

My main problem, is that whenever I give them a run, they tackle it from outside the box. The warehouse run that acted as a catalyst for all of this was rather simple (pick up a few boxes from a recent arms shipment). However, instead of going all stealthy like I had expected, they showed up during the daytime, and tried to 'face' thier way through the entire run. Facial recognition software proved thier bane, and they had to do a hasty run'n'gun.

Az 6/6 Contact? That is setting up your PC for a very hard fall.

Oh yes it damn well will work! That contact is going to be very pissed off that he got dragged into this. Loyalty 6? Friends don't burn friends like that.


The Tough, Lubeless Love Option

Time for a quick perusal of the Contacts section. First, you did make an Availability roll for that contact? Or did you just let them get hold of this very busy VIP? This VIP can then talk to them in person and in a personal way about the importance of keeping a low profile instead of being a pack of brain-dead cowboys. Aztlan people are down right nasty, and this should be scary as hell.

EDIT Any PC that does not grovel, or does in anyway argues or talks back to Contact should be immediately dealt grevious injury. Chop off an arm, BF through a femer, whatever. Nothing like describing one of the PCs writhing on the floor in a pool of their own blood while the other PCs stand helplessly looking on to get their complete and total attention. If anyone tries to aid the injured, they get it too. They will have had all their equipment stripped, and the mage will have something bolted over his eyes. No mage mask as the Contact will want him to hear the end coming. But there will be a couple Initiated mages on hand the other side of one-way mirrored armored glass with high level Counterspelling Foci just in case he tries to lay a contact spell on someone. If a PC is killed here no new PC until the Yucatan peninsula mission (below) is complete or everyone else is dead.

If, and I do stress if they manage to keep from getting killed straight out by the contact it'll be time for their Azzie friend to call in the favour as per the Friends of Friends. Time to introduce them to the Yucatan peninsula, and no they don't get any extra toys to play with. They'll have to do some fast talking just to keep the gear they have.

Try scale this Yucatan peninsula mission so that it is a surprise, but not impossible, that they survive it. During the mission if a PC dies he is not replaced and the player sits till the mission is done. There is no restocking of PCs in this wasteland. Noone remotely sane goes willingly into this area. When the mission is complete, or all the PCs are dead, the PCs can go underground for a few months until things blow over. The players can either start up some new PCs that aren't totally humped and retry the whole thing. Or it would be a great time for a change of venue for the surviving PCs, on a different continent. They might as well since they can't go back to their old contacts or anyone they know lest they get turned in.

In any event at that point if the PCs are lucky the Aztlan Contact will never talk to them again.

That gets a 9 for style.

It's not an impossible concept, though they will need to be pretty clever to stay alive and out of prison (or worse) for any length of time. There were and probably still are IRA operators on the loose after decades of bombings in Northern Ireland.

I'd be with that up until public embarrassment of Lone Star via taunting the officer. Even through the dropping of Seven-7, that is more just between them and the officer. But now they've made it an Alpha Male Moment for Lone Star. Either Lone Star shows that they are still in control and not to be trifled with or it is open season on them. The budget on this will be phenomenal. More than enough for a lucrative shadow ops contract to follow the thinking behind Taki's option.

Also keep in mind that with the IRA though the core shooters/bombers may have numbered around only 50, they had a huge backing organization and widespread sympathy. Without that any single bomber/sniper would have been squashed painfully quick. To draw an analogy to a different situation, they would have picked them up sleeping in their car at the side of a Maryland freeway.

I certainly wouldn't say it was easy, just not impossible though probably next to it. Also the requisite "will need to be pretty clever" part doesn't seem to be in evidence anywhere. I agree Lone Star is going to have every elite detective and operations unit available to work this case, as well as some help from UCAS Feds (or equivalent if in another jursidiction) and maybe even some Corporate Court supplied specialists. In all likelihood these Yo-Yos still end up dead, but they could have a slim chance.

Also I certainly appreciate a good Clancy reference

Oops, I was too vague. I was thinking about these yo-yos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks

I don't think that LoneStar will step back in their hunt of "nerve gas using terrorists" only because their officer was bribed or beat up some street scum.

They'll fire/ punish the officer and meanwhile continue the hunt on the PCs with full effort.

It will become more of a Pulp-SR-game, but if the GM and the players enjoy it, why not?

No, I definitely mean himself. Because a better GM can control new players. A GM focused on their players hinders himself and them.

I'll be perfectly blunt. A strong, experienced group of players who are knowledgeable and good at RP can carry a mediocre GM or even help keep a new or bad GM from creating a steaming pile of crap. It also works in reverse, with a strong, experienced GM being able to wrangle and direct new players from creating catastrophe. Experience has it that the combination of really good players and a great GM is very rare to find. They're the group that plays that really great game that you wish someone could show off as an example at tourneys, gaming stores, or online. On the other hand, a new GM and a new team of players is pretty common. One has to expect problems (and so in this specific game I am hardly surprised at the results, only in the GM's reaction insofar as DS is concerned) will be the rule and not the exception. In the middle is the vast majority - and most likely 99% of us (including myself). At the end of the day the only person who really can have the blame laid at their feet for a bad run/game is the GM. In that vast middle and with the new groups, when given the chance for who the GM should be more emphatic about improving, it should be himself. Like I said, a stronger GM can help carry the group. In a young group will not be able to carry the GM.

I may sound self-absorbed, but that also applies to people who play for both teams. As a GM and as a player, your development as a player (in the context of someone who just plays the game, as GM or player) should be, for beginners and most of the middle, directly focused on yourself. Of course, I would hardly ever recommend in a group of beginners (in RPGs or in a game system) that anyone plays GM and a PC.

Oh those guys, I thought you were refering to Patriot Games though I think that was more of a shoot out on the freeway.

Somewhere I had a funny doctored picture of those two guys with OJ Simpson, I'll have to see if I've still got it.

Ok:

1) Have the heat build up bad, bad enough that you players hopefully get a clue and start trying to lay low. Number one most wanted is NOT a go place to be.

2) Their contacts (the 'more loyal') dry up. The less loyal actively sell them out.

3) Jobs disappear, no more money, hiding becomes alot harder with no money.

4) A Tri-Vid company comes to their salvation. With Desert Wars starting to grow old and stale, they are looking for the new 'edge' in reality broadcasting. contestants are sim-rigged and sent into scenarios to survive the brutal killers (the PCs). The company has the newest shock reality show and is willing to give asylum to the players for 'working with them'. The players can continue and continue in a non-standard shadowrun game with justification.

In addition to the 'planned' show, of whomever the current contestants are versus the runners, there would be plenty out in the world that are not satisfied with the players new status (and immunity) and seek to address that.

Let the player play out the urban assault dreams, if after a while they want a more traditional stealth, talk to them and ask them if given the infamy of the players, if they think THEY could ever hit the shadows again... Most likely they would be willing to re-roll and make new characters understanding this time, that While Fame is very hard to get and easy to lose... Infamy is rather easy to get and almost impossible to lose.

Except, of course, when it's being worn like a hat by the players.

The problem isn't that the game sucked. Far from it, in fact the players gave me high degrees of praise for the game and for my narrative. The players have been smart enough not to get caught on camera, and, despite being media whores, have played thing relatively smart. The problem is that they can take things too far, which makes it hard to justify not killing them all (which I don't want to do because a: it wouldn't be fun, and b: I think that most of the PCs are cool characters that I would like to see develop more). I want ot nudge them a little bit more to the stealth side, not beat them over the head with it until everyone gives up and makes a ninja.

Unless they involve an FAE...

AKA: the "poor man's nuke"