So, having trouble with the possible legal infractions commited by a new player of mine.

He got the idea of taking a nice little stroller, baby spot not easily visible. Placed some ground meat and a watermelon inside. Pushed it into a busy intersection. I did some fudged rolls, and wound up with a three car pile up in Denver.

What do you feel would be fair fines, considering he's a SINner, and got arrested?

Jail.
Several month to years.
Voluntary try at Homicid.
Could get less time if no one seriously injured.

He will have to proof that's his intent was not at provoking an accident that, in all sense, given the location and time he choose, could result into death and major injuries. Being stupid is not really an excuse...

Not to forget MASSIVE payment to injured drivers, accidented cars, city of Denver and Gridlink for the damage and time loss.

Well, if this was our world, he'd be guilty of Criminal Negligence, Creating a Public Disturbance, and Criminal Mischief, at the very least. He'd be fined any damages, plus a huge fine from the city.

I'd use that as a baseline.

Thanks. Four months in jail and about 38,000 . Just more reasons to be a part of the shadows for him.

Don't forget to take away all his R and F gear, any licenses he has tied to his SIN, and replace his SIN with a criminal SIN.

If he's caught in posession of R and F gear and at least one fake sin, chances are he won't get away with just a fine and a few years in jail, especially if he has no real SIN.

Not exactly: that would be equivalent to losing citizenship. A SIN with a criminal record is not the same as a criminal SIN. Criminal SINs are only issued to SINless offenders.

No.



His SIN will be replaced with a criminal SIN.

"Three car pile-up" meaning three cars suffered property damage?

So he's just committed destruction of property, almost certainly more than $10k, so it's 'grand' something, plus causing bodily harm to the passengers, so that's battery. For a SINner, that could easily be 5 years, plus a huge fine ($38k is a slap on the wrist, considering the damage and medical costs alone is probably half of that). The more he can pay off, the less time he gets. Similarly, if he can disprove intent (tough situation considering the evidence is smeared across the road, and there are almost certainly cameras there), or prove he's always been a good boy, he would get his time reduced significantly.

In game, I'd say the breakdown is something like this...
5 years (aka - your character is out of the game), minus 1 year for every $25k he can cough up in bribes and legal fees.

If he were SINless, I'd cut it differently. So there are two ways we can cut it:
1) He's a mad dog. What do we do with mad dogs? We put them down. If I were a Lone Star officer, I think that would be pretty cut-and-dry. This guy is going to do stupid stuff again and again, so let's make my job a little easier right now.

2) If he's a mad dog with a crazy big bank account, maybe we can work something out. Pay the costs of the crime (now inflated) plus pay me personally about $150k, to cover my expenses and that of my squadmates, and we'll find some other sucker to do the time for you. Of course, if you just hand the cash over, now I've still got a mad dog on my hands, plus I have all your money, so I'll put you down before you decide to 'get even'.

Umm, ya, how about NO. Anyone who has that much money with them has enough friends, money, and connections to see to it you wake up in a pine box. Accepting a bribe like that from someone, and THEN killing them is suicide, in every sense of the word. If you're LUCKY they'll only kill you, and not everyone you care about, slowly, and THEN you.

Retire him and forget about it. He sounded like an idiot. Who would want to hire him after that? Or work with him for that matter?

* sound of character sheet being ripped *

Lesson learned. New character please.

Mesh

SINless runners can have that kind of money, but not the connections to save their hoops should they do something this monumentally stupid. Remember, in the Sixth World, you're not a person if you're not a SINner.

Sure they can have the conections as well. A close knit team might do a "run" for revenge had it happen before. Hell depending on what they where doing while that happend a particulary pissed off J. might pay for the hit. Though the killed runner would have to have some rare talent and have not done something like the above stunt.

Also WHY did you PC diecied that was nessacary?

You have have no 'legal' rights, but last I checked very few revenge killings which happen in the world are actually 'legal'.

...'Kaaaay....

No. SINless offenders become SINed the moment they get arrested and is found out they don't have any SIN. Any time a SINner is arrested, it goes on his permanent record, which shows his wwas arrested and tried sometime in his life, hence, his SIN shows he is a criminal.

Not necessarily. Drug runners have lots of money, but are less likely to have friends willing to invest in the necessary costs of fighting Lone Star. Unless the character clearly sells himself as son of the mafia don, then a SINless with cash is a SINless with cash, and whether I'm going to get nuked because I threw him in jail for five years, I iced him, or because I took his money THEN iced him, well... of those three options, the lattermost is the only one that gives me the cash to pay for some better armor first.

I'd like to know why he did this. Surely there was a better way to accomplish whatever he was doing than pretending to kill a baby?

Of course, if it was just for giggles, I'd say forget it and put the character in jail for life (or otherwise retire him.)

Better yet, get him to turn on his fellow team.

Puts the decision between "long time in jail"/out of game or having the same PC continue back in their hands.

It also gives you some potential hooks to work with.

A good GM gets the occasional PC kill.

A better GM gets the PCs to kill each other.

Apparently, he had gotten a touch bored and wanted some entertainment near the end of the session. After running it through me, I asked him if he was sure. I still don't know why he did it other than for a table full of laughs. I've got some ideas on how to open next session, but maybe the players will handle this. I'll keep y'all posted if anything good happens[good meaning taken care of at the hands of the players]. Otherwise, I think the asylum will have room for him[Honestly, what sane person would do this?].

Aw.

Perhaps, in the future, ambushes and other trouble should be creatively applied when the players complain of boredom. They'll quickly learn not to do dumb things when bored and maybe get a little more paranoid?

Well... that may be an issue to handle OOC then. Something still needs to come down, to make it clear that it's not acceptable behavior. But the problem will recur as long as you have players who get antsy and bored at the play session.

Bored players are dangerous players. They tend to steal the spotlight from the rest of the group so they can have a little fun, whatever the cost.

How about a little extortion? The character obviously is in for jail time, a criminal record on his SIN, possibly ritual samples taken so they can track him down if he escapes, not to mention paying fines and damages? But what if you have a villain in your piece (or make one up) that offers to "make it all go away" if the player becomes a follower or agrees to do unspecified favors in the future for said person?

That could play for a LOT of sessions. And in the meantime, the player has the threat of it all coming back to haunt him if he doesn't do what he's told to do...

Just a thought.

EDIT: Just thought of another idea. You could use the extortion to set the character up to betray the team too (long term thing, not short term) and really screw him over.

Yeah, I'd definitely have a guy in a suit come in as he's interrogated, the cops all leave. "You understand you're facing serious jail time for what you've done. They've got the evidence, they've got the witnesses. They've got a list of charges as long as my arm. But, you do me a favor and I'll do you a favor. Think of it as... parole."

Mr. Suit gives the PC a new comlink, looks a lot like the PC's old comlink. "If I call, you answer. And don't tell anyone about our little arrangement."

The PC's free to go, maybe minus some of his more illegal toys he had on him when he was arrested.

Don't have to be explicit about who Mr. Suit is, he can evade any particular question on that. As your campaign develops you can decide who you want this mysterious guy is and what his motives are. He can function as a Johnson, requesting further 'favors' of the PC, who then has to try and get the party to go along without giving too much detail. He could be a detective that gave the PC a bugged comlink and wants to try and use the PC as a snitch. He could be from a corp your PCs recently ran against or for and want to either use the PC as leverage to find out who their employers were or get them to do additional work at a reduced cost, or maybe is just paranoid and want to make sure they have an ace in the hole when hiring the party in the future.

He could call at inopportune times. The first time the PC ignores his call a message comes through a minute later letting him know that 'someone' has tipped off the cops to some criminals in their vicinity and maybe he better get his his ass someplace where he can pick up a phone call.

Really, this is the sort of leverage that GMs dream of having on their players. Don't let the opportunity slip by.

BTW, it always helps to have some small, relatively meaningless encounters on hand if you feel the players are getting bored. The Sprawl Sites book had a bunch of them. Maybe a go-gang could have driven by and decided to try to shoot up the party, or a corporate revenge squad shows up.

As an added bonus you could also hand him an unpaid dayjob: Civil Litigation Defendent negative quality and have him constantly having to show up for court dates and legal appointments to really cramp his running career.

http://www.weregeek.com/2010/07/07/

ROTFLMAO.

That is PERFECT! and way too true. @=)

I'm glad others here read weregeek.

I just read the whole of them this morning after your link. AWESOME... come to be my next favorite webcomics (and a welcome replacement for 8bit theater).

I've mentioned it twice before, even alerting people that the group was back to their ShadowRun game.