Hello all,
Our last session was rather messy, and I think I’ll need your advice on how to handle it properly. Here’s what happened:

The group was hired to retrieve an antique vase from a museum in Hollywood (AAA zone) by one of their contacts, who in turn received the mission from an unknown Johnson. Their contact, a technomancer, accompanied them on the mission. The legwork part went pretty well; they visited the museum during regular opening hours, took notes of the security (the place was guarded by relatively inexperienced graduates from a Knight Errant academy), and swiped a couple of ID badges. The PC hacker was able to retrieve a blueprint of the building, detailing a drain pipe at a nearby river leading into an abandoned sewer system which in turn allowed access into the museum courtyard.

They decided to hit the museum at night. After commissioning some Knight Errant uniforms, they travelled to the drain pipe with their submarine. After disabling the security on the grate, they got into the museum courtyard, and snuck into the museum. With their swiped ID badges, they managed to get into the security bureau, and took down the guards. With lethal ammo. Lucky for them, their hacker intercepted the alarm signal from the guards’ biomonitors. Their contact hacks into the security system, and provides them with a live feed from the cameras into their AR.

Now, before they went into the central exhibition hall (accessible only through the courtyard), where their vase was kept, they decided to hunt down the remaining guards. Again, with lethal takedowns. They then proceeded into the exhibition hall, dispatched the guards there, and disabled the alarm system on the showcase. After acquiring the vase, they begin to mutilate the corpses of the guards, the details of which I shall spare you.

Examining the vase, they discover that it is dual natured, and a map pointing to a treasure spot is painted on it in astral paint. At the same time, the doors to the exhibition hall seal shut, the alarm is triggered, and they hear the sound of their NPC technomancer collapsing. The hacker, who stayed outside of the exhibition hall, attempts to rescue their technomancer, but is sedated by an unknown assailant. In the meantime, regular cops arrive at the courtyard (response times for law enforcement are pretty fast in AAA zones), but are slaughtered by the Sam from the second story window, who brought his easy breakdown sniper rifle.

Realizing that they can’t get out of the room conventionally, they use a couple of thermite rods, and make a run for their two teammates. By now, SWAT has arrived, and a helicopter equipped with speakers demands that they surrender, lay down their arms and the usual police stuff. Well, the players didn’t think so, and gunned down the first squad while escaping the helicopter’s suppressive fire. Entering the security room, they notice that the scene has been rigged to make it look like the hacker and the technomancer attempted to kill each other. The hacker is still alive, but the technomancer is dead.

With their teammate in tow, they flee towards the sewer, but in the ensuing shoot-out, the group’s face and hacker are incapacitated, while the sam and the mage managed to flee. The captured characters are brought to a secure holding facility, where they are kept in isolation.

Now, how should I handle this? The original plan was for them to either escape, or surrender to the police. In the latter case, a high-ranking contact would have been able to bail them out, provided they didn’t kill anyone. Right now, about 20 museum guards and 15 SWAT members are either dead or severely wounded, so that option is right out. On the other hand, I am reluctant to simply kill them of, since the third party disrupting their mission was part of the original scenario. A rescue attempt mounted by the rest of the players would likely result in failure, since they’re down to 2 members, and the other 2 players wouldn’t be able to participate in the scenario.

So, how do I handle this gracefully? I don’t want to permanently gimp anyone’s character, but I don’t want them to get off with a slap on the wrist.

Provide them with an "opportunity" to mount a rescue. Such as the prisoners being transferred using a SWAT van which is now understaffed because they killed most of the team

Well, they are already at a secure holding facility, and I doubt that even an understaffed prison transport will be an easy target for 2 people. Especially not in high security areas where police response times are <1 min.

One option is to have the people who captured them, or another party, offer a run to the group in exchange for their lives with a possible bonus attached. If you make it especially difficult while also giving long standing punishments for failure (such as Criminal SINs for the ones that were caught) then they probably won't feel it is a slap on the wrist. You can even have the new Johnson really push them around for this and potentially gain an edge on them in the future. If you want it to really sting, you can have the Johnson request more than one run. These people are resources, after all.

It can build up to something really memorable if, in the end, they get the chance to get back at both the one who screwed them in this Museum run and whoever lorded it over them after all is finished, making a few people in long term antagonists that your group would love to put six feet under.

Ouch! That sounds like "game over" for these two runners... And given the kind of slaughter they did at the museum, getting caught usually means at least lifelong prison sentence.

One thing I could imagine they could use to get out of this mess. And that is the treasure map on the vase. Did one of them see it and did the Mage and Sam succeed to steal the vase? Now, I don't know the rest of your plot, but if the map points to something important, they could try to make a deal with authorities.

-CJ

I think if they want to mount a rescue that's their business; however I think most professional criminals would feel bad about it but just try and save their own asses. The players with the two characters in lockup probably should roll new guys. It sets a bad precedent if you let the characters who killed 20+ guys and got captured someone make it out. Anything you do in that regard will feel like Deus Ex Machina, and the 'danger' of the setting and the game will go away.

You can let them hire two other runners and let the imprisoned players play them for the rescue.
Just create two 400BP runners, make them expensive and and make the players pay them before the run
(otherwise they will probably die tragically before they are paid....)

Isn't response time under 1 minute a little fast?
Even for an AAA

As for how to get them out of it.

What if someone needs a group for a suicide mission. Implant Cranial bombs, and they're given a mission, etc.
Preferably somewhere out of Logos, or down south between Amazonia and Aztlan.

They're going to need new SiNs. though they have a submarine, they can afford em, heck they should already have new SiNs. They'll need to try and get the cranial bombs taken care of, and relocate.

Honestly, I would give them all the 'hung out to dry' negative quality. They slaughtered a small army. They're /hot/ noone is going to want to talk to them anytime in the near future. Knight Errant is probably building a strike force to go after them. The Sam killed what, 30 people? If they have SiNs, give them criminal SiNs.
Who ever is holding them is going to want to interrogate them and then have them die in a horrible accidental stabbing. Cops go crazy over cop killers, and given Knight Errants reputation of being hard on Runners, I doubt they'll be all fluffy bunnies and protective custody.

As a matter of fact, yes, the sam escaped with the vase still intact. The map on the vase was seen, and it points to a place somewhere in Atzlan territory. They also managed to translate the inscription, which refers to the treasure as the Spear of Destiny.

Heh, the Draco Foundation would be happy to hear that.

Seconded. The two who got picked up are gone, or as good as. Either they'll "commit suicide" or otherwise die in custody, or they'll rot in a supermax prison for the rest of their naturals. Either way, time for a couple of FNGs. Hopefully the whole group will be a little smarter about body counts next time around.

Honestly, I agree with this assessment. My advice is solely if you really do want to keep them alive. Otherwise, it does underscore the mortality rate, as well as consequences for every action.

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah... They wasted Cops. Gracefully is not giving them a cell with Bubba the Love Troll.

Unless there's a way for a smart lawyer to make the evidence legally "Go Away" with loopholes and such, they're going to go away for a long time.

One option, if there's a Hacker contact remaining, pay him to move their prison sentence from a High Security Facility to a Minimum Security Facility ("Hey, Datawork screw-ups happen all the time!"), and that will make extracting them all the easier. Also, the White Collar Criminals are much less likely to shank them for their ration of "I can't believe it's not Gruel.".

It's a tough place for the two to be in, but about the only way I could see for those two to not disappear into Guantanimo for the rest of their (blessedly short) natural lives is for them both to permaburn all their Edge and the transport taking them to their new home will horrifically crash and leave them the sole (rather injured) survivors. For all intents and purposes, these two are dead so I'd give them the option of either doing the Edge burn or rolling FNG's.

Yeah, I'd have to agree. As dystopian as Shadowrun is, the regular city streets, ESPECIALLY in a AAA area, are not a warzone. Actions should have real consequences.

I'd say kill 'em.

Heck, have the other runners find the bodies in their own apartment to underscore how pissed off the cops are, and how vulnerable the surviving runners can be. These are not the same cops of today with all the oversight and regulations. They're a private company and are perfectly willing to kill your ass and make up a story later about how you accidentally fell onto a bunch of bullets. If you want, have them narrowly escape their apartment being blown up after finding the bodies, if it's in a less than nice neighborhood. Later the news reports a gang-related shootout gone horribly wrong at the location.

Then have the players of the dead characters roll up new ones. Hopefully the players will feel a little less invincible-murder-happy.




-karma

Oh, right, like that's ever going to happen!

Assuming they have rights! If they're SINless, they might not even get a trial. Or make it to jail, even if they weren't cop killers.

SiNless would probably have died right there in the sewers. "They resisted arrest"

As luck would have it, they both have SINs, though one of them is a deserter from the Ares corptroops. The reason why I want to give them a chance at survival is because an encounter with law enforcement was more or less unavoidable. It's just that packing lethal ammo is an insanely stupid idea in such a scenario, and the contact who accompanied them told them so before the run.

Well, if he told them so, then they knew the consequences ahead of time I would think. There are plenty of good ways to help them, plenty to harm them, and a few good suggestions on use of Edge.

At least they had the SINs. I don't give the former Ares fellow much of a chance.

Wouldn't that mean that his Ares SiN is a criminal SiN?
or does Ares really not care about deserters?

Ares is a military-themed corp. According to Corp Guide, they call their entry-level drones Privates.

Given such, I'd say they care very much about AWOL employees. Especially one that had a hand in offing 20 of his people. That's a hanging offense.

They knew the risks, and they went ahead with lethal takedowns anyway. The point of a robbery is to get away clean and it seems they forgot that. I reiterate that if they want to survive, they burn their Edge or they roll new characters that will gently scold these two veterans hiring them, with all of their...Nororiety...Oh hell.

What kind of neophyte would hook up with those two after they shot up a museum? Crazy ones. It's a recursion.

You have a face AND a hacker in a jail?

Heck with getting them out.

Imagine this. Nathan Ford and Alec Hardison are in jail. They should be breaking themselves out AND getting information and leads for a future mission. Who else is in in there? Someone with influence that the rest of the world thinks is dead? Someone who knows some very expensive secrets? An enemy of an enemy? A friend of a friend?

They're in a place where people don't usually try to go and where the security to get in is huge. This is a great opportunity for them to get a lead on something that isn't coming from Mr. Johnson.

It's Burn Notice/Leverage time.

Edit: Seriously, if you were just going to kill them, you should have killed them, not hauled their butts off to jail. Personally, I wouldn't want to show up at a gaming session and find out I should have spent the week working on a new character.

They got a hold of the hacker right?
So they have his commlink.
Do these guys run Tacnets? Is the in charge of their encrypted channels?

If I was the GM and they went off mission this badly. I'd start throwing what I call Ares Valkyrie squads. (think Red Samurai but for Ares) With access to their tacnet, and feeding it bad info. So they know where they are, and the sam and mage keep getting dicepool negatives, instead of positives from their tacnet.

Do a private session where the first 2 characters are tortured for information, and then killed.
Then they go after the other 2 until those two guys die, or vanish into new identities in a different city.

They made Knight Errant look bad.. in AAA LA.

I've not watched Burn Notice, but Leverage (which I love) is a modern day Utopian (rather than Dystopian) Shadowrun. I think that's why I like it so much. For the Shadowrun aspect, not the Utopian.

Setting up an escape game for the two isn't a terribad idea, but remember that they're both in isolation in a supermax security facility that may or may not publically exist.

Now, if you want them to stage a prison riotonce they're released into the general population and make a daring escape like something out of Face/Off, go crazy. It'd be a wonderful pink-mohawk capstone to their incarceration, and makes you look even cooler as a GM ("Sure, I totally planned all that") as it would cater to both of their strengths and provide sufficient challenge to make them think.

Make 'em work hard for it.

The problem is, if you're playing a Dystopian game, and "about 20 museum guards and 15 SWAT members are either dead or severely wounded" why the heck are you even taking these two runners to jail?

The only reason I can think that these two people aren't sewer rat feed is that someone high up has a need for a small (expandable) team that can do that kind of damage and he made sure that the team members (read "future hostages") weren't just shot dead on the spot.

Dead would have believable and quicker. They're alive. There needs to be a reason why.

Easy enough: The vase that was stolen needs to be recovered. The two are going to be held and tortured until they give up the information, or until the supervisor gets bored/frustrated and brings a mage in to mindrape the both of them. While the K-E crash team goes after the mage and the sammie, the hacker and the face now have the opportunity for a daring escape.

Provided they have the stones for it.

If not, they're going to be used to get the vase back, lull the team into a false sense of security, then all four of 'em are gonna die in a hail of 100% Amurrican firepower.

Maybe I'm a bit of a dick, but IMO, you run around killing cops when you're in a siege situation, there's a very good chance you'll get two to the back of the head while "trying to escape"...especially with a bodycount like that. Frankly, I'd let them hang just to prove a point to the players. If you reward them with a daring escape, they'll just keep run around like they're playing an FPS in god mode.

Unless you like running a game of sociopaths, that is...to each their own.

Pink Mohawk version: Give the hacker and face time in lockdown. Until something horribly goes wrong and the inmates riot (Latent technomancer/rogue AI). THe plan is for them to escape, but they are now hung out to dry, have criminal sins, and have lost everything (Mind probes are great as are BTL interrogation methods).

The Sam and mage are wanted, hung out to dry, and have enemies KE at the max incidence level (hopefully one of them will have a safe house that neither the hacker or face knows about. Otherwise they will have to burn their current SIN and get a new one.

Mirrored shades version: Give the hacker and face some interrogation time (use of BTLs with fake escapes and other tricks to find the other PCs). Set up an ambush at some point, spring the trap, and have everyone make new PCs.


IMHO:Their mistake was not doing this more quiet like-guard disguises/illusions, stealth and con. That, and not figuring out why the Johnson wanted it leathal.

I may regret this, but I have to ask: why did they mutilate the guards' bodies?

I'm guessing to loot cyberware to sell.

I may add that it may depend how good the runner street cred is. If it is their first run, then just let those 2 dies. But if its 20th run, and they have some recognition in shadows, then maybe there is some hope. However, the lesson should still be harsh. Have someone trustable approach the two free persons and offer help. But it is shadows: help comes with large price tag (The money they have +50k) and they have to risk their own skins. This is the point where good street cred may pay off, and maybe lesson could be sufficiently harsh with much money spent, going into debt, and then risking (and maybe even burning some edge points) in running away mission. It also may go to show that what can you not solve with money, you can solve with a lot of money

Just curious what went wrong for them?

It sounds like they scouted things out(leg work) came up with a good plan, and other than being psycho executed the plan well. If they got caught mainly due to GM fiat I'd be more inclined to let them escape. If they screwed up I'd be more inclinedtot have them die in jail.

Death is light as a feather. Bubba the Love Troll is heavier than mountains.

Well, our games tend to be somewhere in between, perhaps leaning slightly more towards pink mohawk. Maybe a mix of the two options will work out for me. I was thinking about Mind Probing the two of them, implanting both of them with a Judas persona (see RC for details) and Cortex bombs, and send them on a mission to retrieve the artifact from Atzlan territory.



Don't know whether you'll regret it, but here's it: they did it for the heck of it. Otherwise, I couldn't possibly explain how one could behead a corpse and place the head in a showcase, remove the pants from another corpse, and place the first corpse with the neck stump in the second corpse's exposed rear.



Kudos for quoting Robert Jordan. I simply love Wheel of Time!
Unfortunately, we agreed that there will be no surprise intercourse in our games as long as the player characters don't start it.



The alarm was triggered by DM fiat, that's why I'm going out of my way to try and find a plausible reason of letting them get out alive.

This sounds suitably Shadowrun. There are always consequences. If you want to be particularly nasty, the hacker and face should also have to permanently burn a point of karma pool / edge if they want to keep these characters.

Get help. Professional help.


Well, what means triggered by DM fiat? Was it in the books, was it reasonable?
Sorry, but if you run around shouting peoble in AAA alarm is nearly impossible to be DM fiat.
I mean, look at the freaking cheap sensors and programms you can use. It aint a problem to detect gunfire in a house.
(Thats why guns are bad. Tasers, squirtguns, Stunbolts are nice.)

Well, a third party entered the stage, killed their technomancer npc who accompanied them on the mission, and manually triggered the alarm. The only reason why it wasn't triggered earlier is because they managed to infiltrate the central security hub, and replace the spider with their npc. That way, he was able to rig the camera feed and disable all the biomonitors slaved to the nexus.

Ugh! Somehow that reminds me of Hancock... But if that's your players humor, I say they deserve a day or two in a cell with Bubba the Love Troll...

-CJ

The characters in question are good looking women (one of them's a dryad), so Bubba wouldn't be as hilarious as usual.

There's an old rule about leaving NPCs alone, so I wouldn't really call that GM fiat. Especially if they had a hacker.

@Elfenlied
So it was not GM fiat, it was part of the run.

Because if you break it down: Not getting hit by a car would be already GM fiat. (Make an Edge roll. *critical glitch* make an agility roll *glitch* "Well you got hit by a fucking bus for *roll* 10K. There are games working like that. But Shadowrun ain't one of them.)
So just following through the run can not be GM fiat, as far as I am concerned.

GM fiat would have been if they had seen it coming and acted accordingly. Guarding the TM, not killing anyone exept the ones who tried to kill the TM and the alarm would have been set of anyway. (And the guards they knocked out would have got shot, even if the hid the Bodys)

That would have been
GM fiat. But fucking up a run is not.

Bubba has a Sister that's in the Female Prison, also named Bubba.

As for the "Duty is heavier than a mountain, death lighter than a feather" statement, it's a Japanese proverb that was just quoted by Robert Jordan, not something that originated from him.

I think it boils down to weather you as GM felt there was a resonable chance for the PCs to prevent the NPC's death and thereby prevent an alarm.

(You mean they didn't even leave the NPC a spirit to protect him?)

So, you have the guards handled in an empty museum at night. And you are leaving a spirit which costs nuyen to bind with the technomancer because you think what someone else will be robbing the museum at the same time?

I'm going to agree that this was a bit of GM fiat going.

Side note : I'm not a big fan of Bubba the love troll incidents in any case because to me they are just GM fiat. If you want to run my character, I'll hand him over. And putting me in situation where I have absolutely no effective way to change the outcome is the basically the same thing. So once we are done with story telling mode, let me know when I get to play my character again.

I think since the players have seen the mystic map there is a plausible reason for the Johnson to become involved in this. His two choices would be to kill the players in Jail or to free them. Lonestar is a corp and they can be bought, have the Johnson through a fixer buy them an early release with some restrictions like a cortex bomb. I would not actually screw them over with the bomb, I'd play it straight and free them of the bomb when the next run was complete. It is movie plausible in the sense that the players have a lot of the cards here, they have the vase, they have seen the map on the vase, chances are who ever is involved in this wants that info.

Heck maybe the second party that triggered this mess frees them since the Sam gives the vase to the Johnson and they need the information of what the players saw so they can anticipate the Johnsons next move.

No, I'd leave a guy in the meat to watch over him, have the Hacker keep an AR screen up to the node the TM is in so he can jump in if trouble starts. Leaving someone undefended is asking for it. Totally not GM fiat. It's the old rule: players that separate from the group are easy prey for random events.

Sop Gm Fiat then. You aren't guarding him because it makes sense, you are guarding him because you are gaming the system and expecting GM fiat.

Considering the TM was the spider at the time and didn't detect the intrusion, I would lean towards 'GM Fiat' as well to his untimely demise and the alarm activation.

However, the ensuing gunfight and previous mutilation of the guards is the team's own damn fault. If their tacnet encryption code wasn't 'IDKFA' or 'IDDQD' then this wouldn't be as icky as it is.

I think it would make perfect sense to guard the fellow who holds sway over the building security while you are in the building, don't you? Because if something happens to him, at all, then the Run goes bust. Which makes it a weakness in the Run. Which means it should be accounted for and guarded to the best of the team's ability while still achieving mission parameters.

I wouldn't expect GM Fiat. I expect reasonable risk. If you don't guard the corner stone of the mission, then you risk losing it.