Yes, this relates to my group.

Tonight, we blew up a bridge, shot down a plane that crashed into an arcology, and ran from a dragon on a rampage to kill us because we stole its hoard, destroying entire blocks in the process. Luckily, this is a night that doesn't count toward the real game, so...

But, that has me thinking. How much property damage do you consider too much?

Unless it is specifically part of the job, anything that makes the news is too much.

One-offs aside, how the hell did PC's steal a dragons hoard!!??

Well, that's excessive, I admit. However, if the PC's are really creative about it, think about possible repercussions, etc... Then, what the hell, go with it. Hell, I'd let mine nuke Denver if they impressed me enough with the plan... (okay, maybe not NUKE it, but maybe thor it...)

Besides, those little "Break everything that can be broken" sorts of nights are rather nice, especially if it doesn't count towards your game/campaign. Lets players cut loose, try out gear, play with thier character, really lets them push the limits on what the characters can do. But, by all means, don't make it easy for them...

I dunno...for me I would think too much property damage is when you are required to leave the country involuntarily if you wish to stay on THIS side of the ground.

I would think causing that much damage would result in having 12 point Enemies of 1)the Arcology you hit, 2) the dragon, 3)any corps in the blocks you destroyed, and finally Lone Star for causing all of the above.

THOSE runners if they don't leave presto change-o are soon to be toast.

A little excessive it depends how and why you id it.

Your not necessarily looking at 12 point enemies.

The arcolegy doesn’t know who you are and considering it was a unanticipated side effect they probably wont bother hunting you down. It wouldn’t be economical.

The corps hit by the dragon will be more angry at the dragon and have similar issues not knowing who you are.

The star (and the feds) will be about to get you but wont risk innocents to get you and wont necessarily have a lot of information on who you are.

The dragon is probably a level 12 enemy, that’s why it was on your ass blowing up anything it thought might contain you.

Edward

the collateral damage is only too great when it effects anything you own and didn't expect to get harmed

well if it belongs to your character that counts as well.

Ugh. I know its not really in the rules, but I'd probably slap the characters with that nice mobile-background count flaw. That's got to be a hell of alot of bad karma they just pulled in.

Which dragon was it? Named or GM-created?

You're dead. You're all dead.

Lonestar is going to be turning over the city looking for you since you blew up a freakin' bridge on their watch which since it hit the news, and there's no way in hell it's not, makes them look bad. Which is not considered a good thing, so you guys just became the most wanted people in the sprawl. They're going to lean on anyone and everyone to get you so the Mob and Yaks are going to be after you so the cops will let everyone get back to normal and none of your contacts are going to ever speak to you.

Renraku is going to be sending the Deathsquads of Doom™ after you for putting a massive fuck off dent in their shiny Arcology. Doesn't matter if it was intended or not- you shot down the plane that lead to the property damage. For all they know the 'accident' could have been staged by their rivals specifically to target the Arcology. Plus you made them look bad.

Since you shot down a plane then that's going to bring in the Feds on the whole terrorism thing, no way is it getting chalked up as a regular crime. And whichever corp happened to own said plane would probably like to have a chat with you as well.

Then you've either got a pissed of dragon after you or if you killed it as you were running away, you didn't say, then all the rest of the dragons are pissed at you since they don't take all that kindly to humans offing one of their own. So like I said, you guys are probably the worlds biggest insurance risk right about then.

If it's the Seattle Arco after the lockdown, I can't imagine Renraku being all too bothered about someone crashing a plane into the sucker. Hell, they'd probably be taking notes on just how much damage it did...

Uh, don't think so. They paid for the Arcology and it's full of their stuff, it's not like they're trying to retake it for fun. Plus I guess we can add surrounding property damage and all the members of the Metroplex Guard that are stationed around the Arcology that you killed as well to the total.

What I meant was taking notes whether the plane punched through the defences Deus has set up. You know, so that they could try and send in a larger military force.

Blahblahblah. The dragon ritually tracks its hoard. You die. The end.

A shadowteam accustomed to living would have been sure to wash their hands of the bridge and/or plane jobs if they were missions. Both are too high profile targets to do anything but, and as the job in question said damage level is implied. If it was done as part of extracurricular activites, see above scenario. As for anything pertaining to a dragon, see above scenario. Also, tie your GM to the closest load-bearing bumper. Hes earned it.

I concur with the above posters in that in any game I have ever seen or played in the team is dead, they just may not know it yet. Period.

You never mentioned, which arcology? If it was the Renraku, how did the plane not get shot down by auto-defenses?

Oh, the dragon's not THAT bad. Any runner team with proper preparation and a few hundred karma under their belts (each) should be able to handle a dragon. I mean, they're not even necessarily spellcasters of any talent.

Now, a GREAT dragon, that would be preposterous!

That's another thing, if it is the Renraku Arcology, post recovery from Deus, the dragon might have even been fired up, and from what I understand, even a great dragon is reluctant to tangle with the Arc's defenses

This game sounds like the movie XXX.

We had one game where the sammy accidentally blew up a packed stadium, killed about 10,000 people, and managed to get all of our faces (except the rigger, who was phoning it in from his command van kilometers away) on national TV in the process.

That was too much property damage. Everyone ended up executed except the rigger, who skipped the country and got a new face and name.

Accidentally? how can you accidentally blow up a stadium? Unless you got your hands on a tac nuke, of course...

one group i played with ended up using two rating 20 FAE bombs, and 500 doses of gamma-anthrax, on one compound. we'd been hired to raze it. not sure why the GM looked so surprised when we actually razed it.

Did you get to role-play explaining to the J that he should be more acuret describing what he wants done.

Edward

getting back to the original question.. when is property damage too much..
it is too much when it creates too many problems, when you have to spend too many resources to avoid being tracked down.

most of my chars consider killing a bad business and go to great lengths to avoid it, morality is a valid way to consider collateral damage, not everyone likes watching the news later and seeing all the misery they are personally responsable for.

for strictly Srun Biz reasons, anything that makes people start seriously hunting you or gets you on Trid is too much collateral.

ie, if you are in aztlan and while shooting it out with some guards accidentally kill a civillian.. whether that is too much collateral is a morality issue.
if said civillian happens to be the favored nephew of a member of the gestalt you might call said collateral excessive from a biz point of view

-btw about looting dragon hoards.. check the earthdawn book on dragons.. fun lecture on what you`d be up against

DS

I guess your GM would have been really happy to know that such explosives shouldn't go off in that kind of situation. Or would he have?

Though I could see using the microwave as a make-shift timer for the detonator.

there are some explaosives that will detonate in teh microvave. otherwise a bit of mettle will cause sparks wich may detonate electricly detonater explosives and if the bit of mettle hapons to be a detonator then the detonator will probably blow.

Edward

(ps sory about spelling havnt reinstaled ofice yet)

If there's an old-fashioned flame-detonated blasting cap stuck to the C-12, that might go off as the heat rises extremely high, especially if there's sparks.

Plastic explosives IRL don't go off because of heat alone, certainly not heat in the 100-300 degrees C range, but since canon plastic explosives can be detonated with electricity (horribly, horribly bad idea), you can get away with most silliness regarding explosives.

Since this is SR, a lightning bolt type thingy might be able to set off explosives, as the heat and pressure caused by the bolt (interaction with air) might set the explosive off, but the electricity itself won't.

And you can probably set C-4 of y setting it ont fire and them stomping on it several times (if you are trying for a darwin award).

I sorta thought that might be the case, which I why I added the subclause that the canon electrically detonated C-12 gives the GM free reign to do whatever the hell he wants with explosives, including making them non-lethal and just spraying around pink marshmellow crap.

I don't think the spray-foam explosives are up for discussion just yet...

Talk about a booby trap - flash freeze foam explosive - it detonates, and everything gets caught in the foam, which hardens after a millisec or so.

Heh - would this be even possible in SR?