Shadowrun 4th Edition

[Hand-E-Food]

I'm running my first Shadowrun game ever tomorrow night! ;D Shadowrun is set on Earth in the 2070's. Virtual reality, cybernetics, bio-modification, and corporate government are the status-quo. In 2012 (when the Mayan calendar ended,) magic returned to the world. All of the elves, dwarves, orks, trolls and dragons came out of hiding and magical powers resurfaced. The Shadowrunners are mercenaries who will do anything for a buck.

I've come up with a mission but am struggling with the second-last scene.

A client's private data is stored on a convenience store's surveillance system, which was stolen during a recent robbery. The team must locate and retrieve the stolen hardware, connect it by hardwire (not wireless) to the Internet, and run a program that will securely transmit the required data. The program needs more than a minute to run, requiring the task to take place at a safe location.

This is the first time the team's characters are being played, so I don't know what skills each possess. I want to add a chase scene between finding the hardware and transmitting the data. I don't know if any of the players have driving skills beyond passing their driving license test. They could flee on foot, but this limits the amount of loot they can take.

Police responding to reports of gunfire is the obvious choice. If the players do have a vehicle, it would become an easy task for the police to identify them. Also, if any of the players are caught, it's pretty much an immediate game-over which would be bad for their first run.

A second group of robbers might also work, but how would they know the first lot are in need of assistance?

Does anyone have any ideas?

[Elliot Kane]

If you want a chase, it's bound to involve vehicles in Shadowrun, really. I think you should put a vehicle close by and make it variable, as it were. If they have driving skills, it's user operated, if not it's an old model robo-cab they can hack into (If they don't have a hacker they DESERVE to die!) so the robot can drive (Or they drive via the robot).

That gives you a throwaway vehicle they can just ditch at the appropriate time and allows you to put the chase in the way you want it.

That's how I'd set it up, at least

I'd go with the police doing the chasing. IIRC, in Shadowrun they aren't exactly police in the way we know it, more like private rent-a-cops. So their incentive is not great if they aren't being paid once the PCs get away. Also stops the players just shooting the pursuit and stopping it fast.

[Hand-E-Food]

The throwaway car should work. I'm actually hoping they don't make it quite that far tonight, but it would be good to leave a cliff hanger. As long as the cops are armoured well enough that fighting is a bad idea, that should encourage them to leave.

[Elliot Kane]

Nothing like overwhelming force to drop a subtle hint that it might be time to run! ;D

[Hand-E-Food]

I was scared my combat encounter was going to be too tame for the team. Then I discovered drugs! ;D Will let you know how they go.

[Elliot Kane]

Coolness! ;D

[Hand-E-Food]

Damn it's easy for a group to get paranoid, but then that's the game's middle name: Shadowrun "Paranoia" 4th Edition.

The mission was to retrieve an external hard drive, recently stolen from a convenience store, requested by a third party. Visiting the convenience store showed it had been robbed and a quick hack provided a copy of the police report. The team noted that the robber's vehicle was registered to a man bearing no resemblance to any of the robbers descriptions. Hence, they assumed this clue was a red herring.

After having no better ideas, they finally followed the vehicle registration to a run-down apartment block. A person (actually a little old lady) peered at them through the blinds.
"That is must be the lookout! We have to neutralize them!"
After calmly knocking at her door and hearing her frail voice threatening to call the police, they first thought it was a voice modulator. It wasn't until thermographics showed a small, lightly-built, hunched person that they finally accepted she was just a nosey neighbour.

The vehicle is registered to the man who lives underneath the robbers. The robbers torment him and his family and take his van as they please. When he refused to give the team any information, the team assumed he was hiding something and intimidated their way into his home. They finally made him break down in tears and tell everything he knew about the robbers upstairs, risking his family in the process. The team's bounty hunter was stopped just in time to prevent him blowing holes in the ceiling in order to get a surprise attack on the robbers above.

The team recommended that he and his family should leave for a while, which they did. When they reached street level, they came face-to-face with a heavy machine gun hanging out the side of an armoured van. One of the team set this up to catch any escaping robbers. Thankfully it was manned and he waved them through.

Climbing the stairs to the top floor, one member stood on an electrified step, stunning himself and alerting the robbers to their presence. Despite this, they tried knocking politely at the door. Polite isn't entirely compatible with drugged-out thugs, and the face (social influence expert) almost copped a metal spike through his face when the robber leader opened the door.

We only made it through the first round of combat before we had to stop for the night. So far all the rolls have been average, except for the bounty hunter who managed to rip the leader's head clean off with his bare hands. After removing the leader's head, the bounty hunter stated "Oh, wait. That was the one guy that knows what's going on and who we wanted to question, wasn't it?" They wouldn't learn anything from questioning him, but I'll let them sit on that thought. So long as the player's don't glitch, this should be a good fight.

I'm witnessing how quickly a well planned mission can potentially go completely off-track.

EDIT: The browser submitted my half finished post while I was AFK.

[Elliot Kane]

Ah, players! Nothing ever messes your game up faster than players! ;D

Sounds like a good session, though

[Hand-E-Food]

Oh dear. Last night's session was a disaster. The ten minute intro blew out into a three-and-a-half hour f**k up.

The team have "collected" a truckload of goods, some of which need to be delivered to a factory interstate. On the way there, a group of 40 bikers happen to come the other way. They stop, blocking the road. In polite conversation, the bikers demand the truck. The team's face/mage tries to talk them out of it, then produces a lightning bolt in an attempt to Intimidate them.

Six people, most of which are keeping a safe distance, are trying to intimidate 40 armed bikers!

The lead biker responded with a bullet narrowly missing his foot. The team responded with fire and quickly discovered that the penalties for dodging multiple attacks left their face/mage dead twice over, and their street samurai dead three-and-a-half times over. Out of compassion, I decreed they were at zero hit points and bleeding to death.

The rest of the team began to give up and were quickly surrounded and painfully beaten unconscious. However, the mage/hacker didn't give up. He made himself invisible and hid in the truck's cabin. Alternating between VR and astral projection, he caused absolute hell for the bikers, especially since they didn't have any kind of mage. When they sent a tow truck to retrieve the now-broken delivery truck, the tow truck driver's dog happened to be magically aware, not to mention being able to smell the mage/hacker's sweating body hiding in the truck cabin.

I gave them many, many opportunities to stand down, and several more opportunities for the mage/hacker to either escape or infiltrate the bikers clubhouse. There was nothing else I could do. The mage/hacker was slaughtered on the roadside.

The street samurai, who was being played by a substitute player, was evacuated by Doc Wagon (the premium, I'm-dying-get-me-out-of-here service.) The face/mage spent several days in hospital, much to the detriment of his wallet. The support van was badly damaged, which was frankly a blessing for the team as the bikers abandoned it. The rest of the team, while badly bruised, were fit to go again after a night's rest.

The big issue now is they've made recovering the cargo all the more difficult. Spending almost a week in the nearest town to recover from their injuries, the bikers are going to have time to unpack the cargo. It's made the mission all the more interesting, but at the same time, made my job all the more difficult trying to plan this mission so that it's realistic and possible.

I hate it when the group's voice of reason is absent for the night.

[Elliot Kane]

Ah, players! No predicting the horrible creatures, is there? ;D

I've seen the simplest tasks somehow stretch out for weeks and something almost impossible done in no time at all due to a sudden flash of inspiration. I'm sure that players are the bane of every GM! ;D