I was just looing over one of my favorite adventure modules , Corporate Punishment, and was thinking about a few other double cross runs that I've ran (and played), and was wondering what others have run into.
Please, include your own horror stories, gory details and all. The worst of the worst wins a prize!




*note* there is no prize other than being able to say "I got screwed the worst!", and we all feel sorry for you. Except those of us that are still laughing. Or plotting.

I've become less and less likely to hae a Johnson double cross my players-lie? Yes. Cheat? Yes. Owball? Almost certainly. But double cross? Rarely. It's just so cliche anymore for us.

My players hate it, my new honest streak. My Johnsons really tel the truth when they speak. But the players still like to double check everything he says, with good reason of course.

The main angle we use as far as Mr. Johnson "Double Crosses" is maintaining professionalism. After all, the Johnsons also have a rep to maintain. They deal with the runners in the most professional manner possible, regardless of whether or not they screw the runners over. Then, after the heat has died down, that's when they send to in the troops, through a 3rd party. So you never know from a meet whether or not you've been screwed.

I would have to reword it,....

".....and they made it out by the skin of the Megalodon's teeth."

That was a great run.

Veracusse

Hmmm,... no gory details.
Maybe there should be a prize

worst any of my characters ever got double-crossed was a run in Tarislar. we were supposed to take out a bunch of elven squatters. the 'squatters' turned out to be a unit Tir Peace Force deserters who defended their squat with the ARs and MGs they'd deserted with. we tore 'em up pretty good, but got torn up ourselves; ended up bugging out with the job incomplete. then our Johnson paid us by punching our rigger so hard his eye popped out, and beat the rest of us senseless before stealing our stuff.

the best part was that the Johnson was a Seattle runner in disguise, using a p-fix chip. my character, once she healed up, ended up going on a run with that same guy a few months later, and never knew it.

The character which causes my namesake, 'Scratch' was called by an interested third party to retrieve something from Aztlan, not far from the border. (What we didn't know was that a Horror was currently hanging on to the object in question...). Our Samy's skill wires twitched out during the airdrop...so he landed...poorly. The cat shaman was hung up on the sharpened tines of some abandoned farm equipment, meanwhile the Horror just adored watching the poor girl twitch. Our phys-ad went berserk and killed off the combat mage, then himself, and lastly, Scratch the mage/decker is standing there blinking, glassy-eyed until assumedly she gets eaten by chupacabras in the Aztlan rainforest.

The End.
-twitch-

so the GM just.... killed you all?

Scratch has made a few cameos in the games I've run just for the hallibut, but I think we dropped off that campaign before she made it out of Aztlan...so no telling. Alone and in the jungle, she didn't stand much chance, eh? I have her character sheet floating around here somewhere, but she wasn't much of a fighter, and if I recall, was one of the lowest powered characters on the team.

ah, okay.

Yeah, but now years later everytime I watch Boondock Saints and they get to the scene where Rocco shoots the cat on accident and shouts "Is it dead?" I can't help but think of the wide-eyed look on Scratch's face as she asked.

Incidentally, a sequal is on the way Boondock II: All Saint's Day which I'm looking forward to.

(Wow, I feel like a walking advert putting those links in there.)

edit: Stupid typo.

edit: bah. off-topic. ignore.

Before you read this I'd just like to say that this ran on about 10 thousand words longer then I thought it would be. It's worth the read, but if you don't I'll understand. It's also a fun little campaign to play.

The best double cross I ran was a fun, and they got even with the Johnson (in a non terminal manner).

A fixer calls them about a job from a Johnson. The Johnson wants them based on their street rep (And the fact that they have hit his compounds in the past, but they don't know that). They meet and he lavishly lays the praise on. The face and mage of the group both are a little worried about this "wonder Johnson" showing up outa nowhere with their names, but the two razorboys in the group decided to let their egos grow.

The Johnson tells them that the run is a simple data extraction form a government compound in Seattle. They've gotta break-in, grab a set of disks that have illegal information that might cost the mayor her job (it's records he needs destroyed, but the runners have a soft spot for the mayor after they rescued her and she bailed them outa a very tight spot later on. I should also note that the fixer has been bought out and is now working along with the Johnson). They agree on a really large sum of credits for the job (10K up front, 90k on completion). He also tells them that the Lonestar that are guarding the area are corrupt. He says they've been bought out and are planning to take the mayor into custody tomorrow morning, so it needs to go down tonight.

So, the runner being pressed on time decided that the two street sam's should head back to the doss and get their equipment, the mage heads off to try and get in contact with a rigger friend for support and the face stays back with the fixer to try and see what she can dig up about the Johnson. She hires a decker (through the corrupt fixer) and finds out that the Johnson's story sticks. The face is still not happy, but with 100K in the air, the reputation of a friend in office, and the simple pleasure of eliminating corrupt cops (she's ex-Lonestar) she decides to check up after the runs done.

They all meet up a good mile away from the building and take stock. The sam's got all the armor, guns, and ammo they might need to take down the corrupt cops, the riggers there with the van for a fast escape, the mage is kicking back and relaxing in the van and the face is getting geared up for lone penetration on the building (No one else is needed, the distraction outside should pull enough attention away [<--their thinking, not mine])

They pull the van up to the building at around 2:00am and the face hops out to go infiltrate the building. She does amazingly well managing to get to the data in a manner of minutes rather then the hour she had planned out for sneaking and hiding. The group kicks back and decided to wait since she found the data so fast. Might as well let her get out before the fireworks start, right?

Well, the cops had gotten a tip that the shadow runners might be attempting to steal some data from them, and got a description of the van. A star agent on patrol sees the van and quickly runs back to the rest of the crew for support. The Razor boys see this and decide to run out and try and kill him quietly. A brief bloody scream latter the cop is dead; everyone on the block has heard that blood curdling scream. The face is just about out of the back of the building. The other cops run out and see the runners, 2 of the 5 (now 4) man team drop for cover behind some cars and open fire, the other 2 run back to the building to call for reinforcements.

At that point the face pops out and sees the two cops making a run for it. She drops down and kills one with a snap kick to the head, and as she turns on the other one she recognizes him. It's her ex-husband (their relationship is still strong, but her being a shadow runner made them have to break up, till she is able to pay off her debt and return to the world of the SIN'ers). He hasn't noticed that his partner has bit it, he's still running.

(Quick time flash) The face is has pretty much kidnapped her ex, the other 2 cops are dead, the 2 razorboys are fine, and the mage is watching the reinforcements pull up. The rigger goes to take off, but the van is hit with a rocket. The vans damaged and the riggers knocked out but still alive. They never do find who shot the rockets. The Lonestar quick response team has arrived, and they're packing mondo firepower. It's a five man team, one being a mage.

(Another quick flash ahead) The Mage is still in the van, but has taken some massive drain damage. She's knocked out, but she took down the enemy mage and one of the heavy enforcers who made it into the van. One of the razorboys has decided to save his own skin and beat feet after killing off two guys with almost as much cyber ware as him, and the other razor boy is doing his best to keep the face and her ex alive. That's when shit really hits the fan. 2 Knights Errant security response vehicles show up and open fire on the now very tired and semi-wounded runners. The face manages to get the Rigger awake and they do their best to take off. One vehicle gives chase, but after an amazing idea by the face, they ditch the van in an ally, great into the sewers, and go for it. The razorboys and the faces ex are now carrying the mage, the rigger is still groggy and rather pissed about leaving the van behind to be blown up (It was custom fitted with explosives and a napalm tank, thus when they got into the sewer, it detonated covering the manhole they went down in fire.) The run into a few rats and a few angry orcs, but luckily the face has some connections in the orc underground. Enough connections to get them out alive at least. They do lose some cash and weapons in the process, but it's better then dieing, right?

Oh yeah, that other razor boy who beat feat, what did he do? He managed to duck into a nearby building and was checking out the response team that came in. As he watches, the one remaining Lonestar responder is pretty much executed by the knight's errant officer and the media quickly shows up. He kicks on the Vid in the doss he's in and watches the report about what just happened.

"We're coming to you live from 5th and Main where shadowrunners have just attempted a break in of the mayor's personal office! The Lonestar assigned to this building are all dead, but luckily Knights errant was called in by the locals to deal with the problem. Do you have anything to say sir?" The video pans over to the officer standing there, and guess what? It's the Johnson! He drones on about how it was a good thing they were in the area since Lonestar is so incompetent blah blah blah...

A few weeks later after hiding out and getting in contact with a new fixer, they dive into the details of everything. He was a knight errant PR rep, they find where he lives and they also track down the fixer who's gone into hiding now that he knows they're not dead. They kill the fixer (no loss there) and then break into the PR reps house and kidnap his wife and children. They black mail him saying that the Razorboy recorded their meet with his cyber eye (he didn't), and that he got a recording of them killing the Lonestar officer (he did).

They managed to walk away with over 250K from that run. Took 21 hours to play out. There were a few mini adventures that happened in the underground and again at their doss, but this has run far, far beyond what I originally thought I would say.

And what else is fun is that they still manage to extort the poor bastard once in a while. He's now a plot device who I use to try and get them killed quite often, but he's just too damn profitable for them to try and kill.

Edit: Took some spelling mistakes out and some grammar problems. I'll probably check it again when I'm more coherent.

put it this way when we were double crossed i was playing my trol shaman, and well i mana balted his ass. not much left after that, but our face had some hard explaining to do to get us out of the world of s**t i had just created!

wouldent reccomend knoking one off but it douse give you the hunted flaw!

I don't know if I can say that Mr. J set us up because, in all fairness, we never actually ASKED if he was working for Deus...

I think Celtic Double Cross was probably the worst time that's ever happened, and the run was just one big drek storm from start to finish as the GM was rather evil about it.

Weredigo, the gunslinging dwarf. and Sandstone the Warmage/Demolitions Expert pick up this real easy job (danger will robinson danger). Go to the hotel, find the White limo <we were even given the lisence plate #> at south side of parking level 3, pick up package of one breifcase from the contact and take to the address given to you by the contact. Okay, No problem.
We get there, we find the Limo, we open it. Contact's skull is hollow, he's dead. We jimmy the cuffs attaching him and the briefcase open, and search the body and come up with a business card. One side shows a titty bar, other side is written address to warehouse on the docks. We head to the docks... (palms should be slapping foreheads) ...we get there, and Open the doors. Place is empty. ???? "Place looks empty." ???? no Place is empty. Weredigo walks in and yells out Hello. And recieves not one but two bursts from Vanquisher's (upgraded version of Vindicators). Laying on the ground 15 feet from where he was standing, armor is fragged Weredigo can now see the thing through Infra Red, and begins a longtime hatred for what we know as S.C.A.R.A.B.S. 6 Legged Robotic Tanks, armed with Dual Vanquishers and Grenade Launchers, makes evil use of Ruethenium polymer. Long story short that was almost the end of Weredigo, his buddy had to teleport the both of them out of there. Come to find out, wrong address. We shoulda gone to the titty bar instead.

Heh...somebody's been influenced by Ghost in the Shell.

Probably the only use of Ruthenium I would allow in my game....

I just finished running the first ever adventure I've had with a Johnson double-crossing the group. They ended up chasing Banshee down and giving her to the Tir Ghosts. They had also said they would give them to Lofwyr, and he's a bit peeved at them. That will come back to haunt them later. But they didn't have much of a chance. The Ghosts were giving support in her capture, whereas Lofwyr had basically said "do it, how you do it isn't my concern."

Yup... They are Literally straight out of Ghost in the Shell... Developed by Aztecknology, have motion detectors, and self destruct in uber fireballs if you can damage them enough, but I wouldn't suggest standing too close.

Weredigo: How do you balance teleporting in your games?

With the Time Travel spell.

"bah'lenss...?"