Hey guys...
I am running a 4 hour session tonight and I was toying with an April Fools theme.
I had thought about letting them play some of the city's more colorful NPCs, but I'm not sure I like it.

Any ideas?

Johnson hires them for a very special run.
When they go to extract the target, he says "April Fools" and an MCT Security Team opens fire on the runners.

You could always steal my idea of kidnapping Goofy from DisneyLand.

mind you, goofy is a social adept in disguised power armour.

Then once the party is "dead" they wake up in a testing facility. It was all a dream/alter memory/simsense.

Blackberry Cats. Always fun, especially when they start using their Compulsion power for things like cans of tuna, or scratchings behind the ear.

Seriously did that one time, a rather large package (so it could have an air supply for x amount of time) was to be delivered. Of course the cat wants out. And of course the players can't resist. Especially when they do get it open and find the cutest widdle kitty in the whole wide world! Yeah, not much, but it made for a nice filler session when half the party was absent and I needed to do something with those who did show.

Robotics expert in my game, actually. He liked kids and went in costume once a week on his "Working Day Off".

Not that my group did any legwork or research.

Did they crash through the gates in a pimped out step van, open fire on everything in sight, end up laying waste to the fairytale castle, almost killing Goofy, and taking Minnie too because they figured they could get some extra for her?

*shrugs* i'd have left it out and cared for it even without the compulsion power being used on me . .
i am like this with pretty much all kitties ^^

. . i guessed O.o

Flash & Smoke grenades disguised as soda cans in a variety of trash cans to simulate a terrorist attack, causing everyone to retreat to the underground bomb shelters. They conned/shot their way through the front gates to their waiting off-road vehicle (For driving on the streets, go figure.), and were chased by customized Jaguar Sports Cars. The secured Goofy properly against magical searching, but forgot his RFID Tags.

Then the lawn at their suburban safehouse got up and started beating the building.

This being LA, the Johnson got the important parts on 'Trid and has all the rights to the footage.

Hell the LA setting in general is a good place to run an april fools run, (and I say this normally running in a slightly less star struck LA). It's completely topsy turvy, where instead of worrying about how to sneak in to a facility, you have to worry about showing your best face to the camera and making sure to negotiate enough of a broadcast delay that the opposition doesn't get to use your feed as a mobile security camera tracking on you.

Underground bomb shelters. In Disneyland.

Only in Shadowrun......

Um, only IRL. DisneyLand was built during the height of the Cold War. Think about that for a moment.

Actually they're real, Disney was built during the cold war, so their are underground escape tunnels with blast doors in case of an attack. They just aren't publicly acknowledged these days (at least if some of the more interesting speculative fiction writers I enjoy are to be believed)

EDIT: Ninjaed by CanRay

0_0

Learn something new everyday.

Basically the maintenance tunnels under DisneyLand (Which are quite extensive) are supposedly built above any standards one could name for anything but a bomb shelter. DisneyLand wasn't likely to be a direct target for the Russians (They were aiming for Military/Logistic/Political sites after all, not civilian deaths like terrorists.), so they work just as well.

I will confess, this is heresay, and some common sense (Again, built in the '50s and '60s, and upgraded constantly.). I had heard the stories of the bomb shelters before reading them in fiction (Possibly the same authors as Raven), but never got the chance to talk to anyone to confirm or deny the claims. I live in Canada, I've been to DisneyWORLD (Other side of the continent) once, that's it. And I was a kid then. (Ironically enough, during the Cold War!).

Damn, there go the memories again...

"Grandpa's having one of his 'trips' again..."

@CanRay Would the book in question feature an ex Navy Seal and his private army?

As far as Disney goes, getting real information on their plans is actually proving more difficult than I would have guessed, as far as I can tell there are only generalities available on the internet.

That said there are a few interesting points of consideration. First, considering Disney hires ex-NASA employees to help design it's roller coasters, who do you think they hire as security forces, in costume or not? Second, shortly after 9/11, Disney was able to get congress to pass legislation making the low level airspace over the Disney parks a 'No Fly' zone. Finally, the best article I could find on the subject of Disney evac plans and security: http://www.femf.org/education/dis99syllabus/gardner.htm

Food for both RL and Shadowrun thought.

One of them, yes. My guilty pleasure. But as I said, I heard about it before. (And I want an M60E4.).

And that link outright mentions the "Security Shelters". Considering when the site was first built, what do you think they were securing people against? Not that hard a stretch.

Heh, yeah the description of the E4 in the (4th?) book was great, can't wait for another book in that series. Definitely a guilty pleasure.

No Fly Zone?
Does that mean Disney has SAM or FLAK in there?
Else, how do they plan to enforce this?
What good does a no fly zone do in this case?

Enforced by the US Air Force I presume. As far as why, well hell I'll use the book plot since it works, how about terrorists flying a crop duster plane loaded with a binary nerve agent over Main street during the parade? (Strictly speaking the book was for the florida one, but same shit, different location for the LA location).

I'm a civvie puke and I can think of a dozen reasons to not want anything flying over a major theme park with Terrorists running around looking for virgins in the afterlife. The one mentioned in the novel is a really good one.

Which reminds me, I have to steal those plots one of these days.

Have them do a run for/with/against the Scatterbrains.

You guys are thinking of Disney World with underground tunnels. Disney Land does not have any.

Where else would they keep Walt Disneys cryogenicly preserved head?

Or Dempsey's head and his fun toys. (Sorry, Deadlands adventure that my group utterly hated with the passion of ten thousand suns!).

Keep in mind that the underground tunnels at Disney World are actually above ground and that the park is built on top of them.
Hell, it's not even a secret.

You're right, I was, and I realized it later on. Couldn't be bothered to edit that in to an earlier post. That said, all Disney facilities apparently incorporate some shelters, although these are mostly to deal with extreme weather events, not bombs. Given time until SR, the tunnels could easily have been added to Disney Land as well, or at very least bomb/quake shelters.

So in summary, Disney Land does not currently have tunnels, but the concept of Disney having bomb shelters is from a perfectly valid IRL source.

Oh, sure.
You could even go one better and have the Cinderella Castle sink into the ground (popular myth) for whatever reason.

Sounds like a pretty solid adventure hook. Someone hires the group to make the castle sink.

Our april fools run was great. More for the Awakened, though.

Lofwyr played EVERY role. He was every grunt (others were illusions), he was the johnson, the guy with the suitcase, the drug dealer, the informants, everything. The mage decided he was going insane since he was seeing great dragon aura everywhere. Even passersby registered as Lofwyr. Brought the rest in by giving them temporary astral vision.

Edit: Broke it to them by having Lofwyr fly out of the club in his real form. Lofwyr lofwyr lofwyr. Lofwyr. Didn't answer any questions on the subject, though, so I think they think their characters are actually going mad.

"Dude, did we just break Rule Three of Shadowrunning and cut a deal with a Dragon?" "Um, I think so. And 'Ran against him. And used him as a contact. And... Oh man, what the HELL WAS HE DOING?"

I might have to make space in my corner.

I thought the dragon rule was number four?

Rule One: Watch your back.
Rule Two: Conserve ammo.
Rule Three: Never Cut A Deal With A Dragon.
Rule Four: Stay the FRAG out of Aztlan.

Wasn't it One, Two, shoot straight, then Three? Or do you rarely find the need to shoot straight?

Watch your back
Shoot straight
Conserve ammo
Never deal with a dragon

Always have a plan B

Always know more than the other guy. Always know where the exits are.

My favourite: Be polite, be efficient, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

Deal with a dragon? Hellooo Noteriety.

That sounds more believable. Still, were DisneyLand/World built around the same time?

Within 5 years of each other IIRC. Disney Land was first, and it was from that that they learned and built the utilidors. They wanted employees to have unfettered access to every area of the park without having to walk through it to avoid breaking the immersion (no cowboys in TomorrowLand).

for a slight fee, you can tour the tunnels of disney world
http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/tours-and...ackstage-magic/
my coworker and her husband went on that tour only a few months ago.

I have a friend who worked in Disney World back in the early 90's or therabouts. They're more than just bomb shelters; they're extensive (and reinforced) enough to let a sizable number of people (read: the park's employees) live out a siege. Disney was a certifiably paranoid russophobe, above and beyond even the Cold War norm, and he wanted his people taken care of.

Which means he was smart enough to know what the dangers were and try to prepare against them. Most people were happy with the safety of the floor and their desks. *Shakes Head*

No, more the type who saw Communist sympathizers and red agents around every corner. Big fan of Senator McCarthy. I acknowledge that an intelligent person would have been naive to not expect the world to end in the bad MAD days. It's a miracle we survived.

Incidentally, the duck and cover drills students practiced with their decks did serve a purpose, contrary to popular opinion. It wouldn't do jack against a direct hit or near miss, but if it was that close you were screwed anyway; it WOULD protect you somewhat from flying shrapnel - like window glass broken by the blast wave.

I'm just shy of 24, but I love history, and that was a fascinating period.

I'm almost 32. I lived through the last part of those days. It wasn't fascinating for the people alive at that time.

And, yes, I know all about the "Duck and Cover" bit. I still can't hear an air raid siren without freaking out.

As the Chinese curse/proverb goes. "May you live in interesting times."

We certainly are now. In fact, I don't see times getting any less interesting until the human race kills itself or reaches utopia.

We're talking about the human race here. Destroy ourselves.

Hell, one of my big hopes is that magic comes back and Dragons pop up going, "Um, you know, you guys have REALLY messed things up here."

Not much different from Shadowrun's events. If humanity doesn't figure its shit out in time, mother nature will provide a solution. She always does.

We need to get our collective ass off this planet. Give Mom some breathing room.