The scenario was this: The runners were contacted to rescue a corporate wage slave, one Vikki Cage. Vikki is a 2m tall blonde bombshell, the very essence of sexuality and poise. She's a personal secretary to a Mr. Nash, a high VP over at S-K. But all the characters know is that she's from a corporation and valuable, hence the 50k alive, 10k dead offer for her return. In reality (behind the scenes), Mr. Nash has been having an affair with Vikki, the details and evidence of which are in her headware memory, locked behind a sophisticated data filter. He has not informed S-K of her disappearence yet, and is willing to pay whatever he must to save his marriage to his 20 million
a year wife.The guys get their information and set to work. They don't have much of an indication of who nabbed Vikki, but they set to work hiring out a small team of deckers to search for references to her on the matrix. In the first truly surprising roll (I set a single computer test for the contact deckers, at a TN 8. One decker by the name of Jazz scored 6 successes with 6 dice; I've never seen anything like it before), the characters were then able to track down a matrix blog made by the ameature kidnappers, a small "gang" of rich high schoolers who fancied themselves members of the Night Hunters. One of the guys' parents are out of town for the weekend, so they've been keeping Vikki locked in his basement. Or at least so says the blog. They get an LTG # for where the blog originated, and off they go.
Now, this caught me off guard. I truly suspected that they would find the house much later, if at all that night. But they get over to the nice yuppy neighborhood in mid day under the cloak of a physical mask, disguised as yuppies, and hang out in the park in the middle of the neighborhood after driving by the house once to check out the address. They take a break in the park and mage goes astral and discovers that there's a woman alone, afraid, and tied up in the basement.\
They call in the muscle (at this point the face and shaman are the only ones there, doing recon) The B&E / gun bunny arrives and they all go over to his van and disguise the whole set up as a repair van with a trio of electricians. Nice touch on their part, IMO. They hear motorcycle engines revving in the distance, and the mage goes astral again to take a look. There are some people outside the house now, one is magically active and one looks to be trying to pick the lock. They decide, in the single boneheaded move of the night, to try and ignore the five Ancients gangers out in front of the house and head on in like they belong. The shaman already knew that they had astral overwatch from the mage, I don't know why she thought that was an okay idea. (Maybe she had more to drink than I thought last night ...) Anyway, they step out of the van and the mage leans over to the nearest elf, the boss, and whispers in his ear. This was my moment to have the gangers draw some steel and try to intimidate the players away. Suddenly, the players object.
All three players at once: "Wait, what did he say?"
GM (me): "Um, he was whispering, and you're 30 meters away."
Face: "I have hearing amplification and select sound filters, can I try it?"
B&E Guy: "I have hearing amp too."
GM: "Okay, um ...(pulls from butt). Roll perception. Base TN of .... 10. -2 for amps, - half the rating for select sound filters." (this may be where it broke down, as I made that up on the spot)
The face and other cybered guy roll perception, generating no successes for either of them.
Shaman: "I can try, right? TN of 10?"
GM: "Um, yes."
The shaman rolls, and gets two dice over 12. That's right, the one character who had no business hearing the whisper nails the test.
The mage had said, "It's an illusion, waste them." Which of course, started a heavy firefight. They take down the four members pretty easily, suffering only a few light wounds. The fifth is a pretty new guy, and can't handle the load; he takes a serious physical and passes out from the surprise, soiling himself in the process. They know security has to be on it's way by now, so they start acting quickly (Something they're only now learning after almost a year of playing. I like to think I taught them something
) Shaman plays overwatch and summons a spirit to conceal them when they get out of the house. B&E guy breaks up the front door lock, but the lock on the basement is taking too long as the sirens are getting louder and closer. He takes his assault rifle and puts some rounds through the lock, opening the door but setting off the house's alarm. What do they care, the cops are already on their way! They scoop up Vikki and make a daring escape into the van, now concealed, with the soiled ganger in the van, until they're well away from the neighborhood where the snatch took place.Between asking the girl questions and questioning the ganger, they determine that Vikki is dating the local boss of the Ancients, and that they had sent their own team to rescue her. They worked out a drop and delivered Vikki into the cushion of a souped up limosine by the end of the night.
The run was sweet for many reasons. For one, I had expected them to be there during the evening at the earliest, when a group of real Night Hunters would be showing up for the girl and the little punks, just as a more proficient group of the Ancients showed up, resulting in the group getting in the middle of a pretty large gang fight. If they missed the fight, they would have the scream sheets in the morning to follow to find the girl. I never imagined they would have the information as fast as they did, nor that they would be in the position to act immediately when they found her unprotected.
Anyway, just throught I'd share that and brag about my players slightly. They're learning!
