Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: geoff@*************.co.uk (Euphonium)
Subject: Victim of DocWagon
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 15:42:56 +0100
Evening All.

I'd appreciate any ideas you can offer on what to do with a character
in the game I am running.

Background:
The campaign is set in Seattle, currently in August 2053.
The team is as follows:
Bwok - the Japanese female troll street sam
Sooty - the male Ork mercenary
Hot Stuff - the female tiger-shifter physad
Bandit - the human male Raccoon shaman
Mortis - the human male Rigger
Dara - the human female Fire Elemenalist

I have jsut finished running them through SRMissions 2 (demolition run).
Bandit's player missed the last session so Bandit got knocked out by a
concussion grenade, and left in a quiet corner while the rest of the team
finished the job.

As they drive away from the scene, Dara regains conciouness as her drain
wears off, looks around and says "Where's Bandit?". The rest of the team
give a collective "Oh ****!" realising they've forgotten to pick him up!
In the heat of the fight. I'd forgotten about him too, and damn near fell of
my chair laughing at the player's expressions.

They pulled a quick U-turn to go back, but the explosives they'd left
detonated before they got there. Hearing helicopters coming in, they beat
a fast retreat, not wanting to be caught at the scene. They have put word
out through their contacts to try and find out if the emergency services
found anyone alive in the wreckage.

What the players don't know is that two of the security guards survived the
raid, and pulled Bandit out of the building when they found the demolition
charges.

So, Bandit is now a prisoner of DocWagon, and who have a witness to him
setting one of the demolition charges, and I'm looking for ideas for what
they'll do short of killing him.
Also, even if Bandit gets out of this, there is a Yakuza assassin after him
who wants revenge for the insult of Bandit stealing his custom pistol, that
Bandit looted from a fence's workshop a week or tow earlier (Eyewitness)

TIA

Geoff
Message no. 2
From: msde_shadowrn@*****.com (Mark S)
Subject: Victim of DocWagon
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 09:10:24 -0700 (PDT)
--- Euphonium <geoff@*************.co.uk> wrote:
> I have jsut finished running them through SRMissions 2 (demolition
> run).
> Bandit's player missed the last session so Bandit got knocked out by
> a
> concussion grenade, and left in a quiet corner while the rest of the
> team
> finished the job.
>
> As they drive away from the scene, Dara regains conciouness as her
> drain
> wears off, looks around and says "Where's Bandit?". The rest of the
> team
> give a collective "Oh ****!" realising they've forgotten to pick him
> up!
> In the heat of the fight. I'd forgotten about him too, and damn near
> fell of
> my chair laughing at the player's expressions.
>
> They pulled a quick U-turn to go back, but the explosives they'd left
> detonated before they got there. Hearing helicopters coming in,
> they beat
> a fast retreat, not wanting to be caught at the scene. They have
> put word
> out through their contacts to try and find out if the emergency
> services
> found anyone alive in the wreckage.
>
> What the players don't know is that two of the security guards
> survived the
> raid, and pulled Bandit out of the building when they found the
> demolition
> charges.
>
> So, Bandit is now a prisoner of DocWagon, and who have a witness to
> him
> setting one of the demolition charges, and I'm looking for ideas for
> what
> they'll do short of killing him.

It depends on how mean you want to be to Bandit. I'd be inclined to be
a little lenient since he took the concussion grenade as a result of
missing the session. You could always have him awake with 6 points of
stun from the grenade while being dragged off by security. If you can
track down the player in between sessions, it shouldn't take long to
figure out what Bandit wants to do after dealing with 2 rentacops. If
you can manage to hint to Bandit that something has gone horribly
wrong, then he might be encouraged to lay low for several days for
maximum drama to the others. I bet he's more than a little annoyed at
the rest of the team!

Mark




__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Message no. 3
From: failhelm@*****.com (failhelm)
Subject: Victim of DocWagon
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 10:14:44 -0700 (PDT)
--- Euphonium <geoff@*************.co.uk> wrote:

> Evening All.
>
> I'd appreciate any ideas you can offer on what to do
> with a character
> in the game I am running.
>
> Background:
> The campaign is set in Seattle, currently in August
> 2053.
> The team is as follows:
> Bwok - the Japanese female troll street sam
> Sooty - the male Ork mercenary
> Hot Stuff - the female tiger-shifter physad
> Bandit - the human male Raccoon shaman
> Mortis - the human male Rigger
> Dara - the human female Fire Elemenalist
>
> I have jsut finished running them through SRMissions
> 2 (demolition run).
> Bandit's player missed the last session so Bandit
> got knocked out by a
> concussion grenade, and left in a quiet corner while
> the rest of the team
> finished the job.
>
> As they drive away from the scene, Dara regains
> conciouness as her drain
> wears off, looks around and says "Where's Bandit?".
> The rest of the team
> give a collective "Oh ****!" realising they've
> forgotten to pick him up!
> In the heat of the fight. I'd forgotten about him
> too, and damn near fell of
> my chair laughing at the player's expressions.
>
> They pulled a quick U-turn to go back, but the
> explosives they'd left
> detonated before they got there. Hearing
> helicopters coming in, they beat
> a fast retreat, not wanting to be caught at the
> scene. They have put word
> out through their contacts to try and find out if
> the emergency services
> found anyone alive in the wreckage.
>
> What the players don't know is that two of the
> security guards survived the
> raid, and pulled Bandit out of the building when
> they found the demolition
> charges.
>
> So, Bandit is now a prisoner of DocWagon, and who
> have a witness to him
> setting one of the demolition charges, and I'm
> looking for ideas for what
> they'll do short of killing him.
> Also, even if Bandit gets out of this, there is a
> Yakuza assassin after him
> who wants revenge for the insult of Bandit stealing
> his custom pistol, that
> Bandit looted from a fence's workshop a week or tow
> earlier (Eyewitness)
>
> TIA
>
> Geoff

I tread Doc-Wagon as extra-territorial, and depending
on the contract, depends on how the client is treated.
Either way, dealing with Doc-Wagon this way gives
runners a better reason to use Doc-Wagon and more
options.

Just a thought.

- Failhlem
Message no. 4
From: james@****.uow.edu.au (James Niall Zealey)
Subject: Victim of DocWagon
Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 09:31:26 +1000
> "Euphonium" <geoff@*************.co.uk>
>
> So, Bandit is now a prisoner of DocWagon, and who have a witness to him
> setting one of the demolition charges, and I'm looking for ideas for what
> they'll do short of killing him.

Well, the simplest is probably to implant a cranial nuke in him.

The next one is to mess with his mind. Expose him to psychotropic black
ice in a controlled environment. Make him never want to hurt docwagon
again, or want to dob in his buddies to docwagon (if you do either of
these, have him hum a tune or whatever when his programming kicks in).
Continuing on along this vein, you can go all the way to simsense
reprogramming.

Have some docwagon mages track him using a physical sample.

Have him properly recruited by docwagon (preferably along with one of
the top two entries).

Have him possessed by a shedim (not sure about this one - do they need
the mage to be projecting, or just unconscious?)

OR

Don't make anything up, and have him wake up in an unlikely location,
dressed in odd clothes. Leave him to make up an explanation and then
take that explanation and twist it a bit.
Message no. 5
From: maxnoel_fr@*****.fr (Max Noel)
Subject: Victim of DocWagon
Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 01:22:09 +0100
On Oct 6, 2004, at 00:31, James Niall Zealey wrote:

> Well, the simplest is probably to implant a cranial nuke in him.
>
> The next one is to mess with his mind. Expose him to psychotropic black
> ice in a controlled environment. Make him never want to hurt docwagon
> again, or want to dob in his buddies to docwagon (if you do either of
> these, have him hum a tune or whatever when his programming kicks in).
> Continuing on along this vein, you can go all the way to simsense
> reprogramming.
>
> Have some docwagon mages track him using a physical sample.
>
> Have him properly recruited by docwagon (preferably along with one of
> the top two entries).
>
> Have him possessed by a shedim (not sure about this one - do they need
> the mage to be projecting, or just unconscious?)

A shedim can only possess an aura-less body (i.e. its owner is dead or
projecting).

These suggestions sound a little bit too harsh to me. Don't forget
that it's not Bandit's fault (neither the player's nor the character's)
if he ended up in that situation. All the player did was not to show up
at the session. Unless it was an unjustified last-minute drop-out (e.g.
the player forgot to wake up), I find it unfair to punish him for
something which he neither caused nor took part in and over which he
had no control at all.

-- Wild_Cat
maxnoel_fr at yahoo dot fr -- ICQ #85274019
"Look at you hacker... A pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting
and sweating as you run through my corridors... How can you challenge a
perfect, immortal machine?"
Message no. 6
From: Jeffrey.T.Dougherty@********.edu (Jeffrey T Dougherty)
Subject: Victim of DocWagon
Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 00:35:11 -0400 (EDT)
On Wed, 6 Oct 2004, James Niall Zealey wrote:

> > "Euphonium" <geoff@*************.co.uk>
> >
> > So, Bandit is now a prisoner of DocWagon, and who have a witness to him
> > setting one of the demolition charges, and I'm looking for ideas for what
> > they'll do short of killing him.
>
> Well, the simplest is probably to implant a cranial nuke in him.
>
> The next one is to mess with his mind. Expose him to psychotropic black
> ice in a controlled environment. Make him never want to hurt docwagon
> again, or want to dob in his buddies to docwagon (if you do either of
> these, have him hum a tune or whatever when his programming kicks in).
> Continuing on along this vein, you can go all the way to simsense
> reprogramming.
>
> Have some docwagon mages track him using a physical sample.
>
> Have him properly recruited by docwagon (preferably along with one of
> the top two entries).
>
> Have him possessed by a shedim (not sure about this one - do they need
> the mage to be projecting, or just unconscious?)
>
> OR
>
> Don't make anything up, and have him wake up in an unlikely location,
> dressed in odd clothes. Leave him to make up an explanation and then
> take that explanation and twist it a bit.


This seems a little excessive, bearing in mind that this was all
originally implemented because Bandit's player missed a session, and not
because he did something outrageously stupid. If I missed a session and
came back to find that I had a cranial bomb or was posessed by a shedim,
I'd be more than a little bit annoyed at the GM.

As for what DocWagon would do- as noted in previous posts, they *can* do
pretty much anything they want, since they're an extraterritorial
corporation. (I believe they're listed as a AA in the introduction to
Corporate Download, but I could be wrong) However, since DocWagon
probably makes a fair amount of money off of shadowrunners who may not be
able to afford the high-end contracts and thus have to pay big nuyen when
they need things like HTR, they probably have an incentive not to screw
their customers over in the absence of a pretty compelling reason.
Honestly, how long would a medical services corporation that made a habit
of planting cranial bombs in its customers stay in business?

Unless the entity your team hit has a pretty good ID on Bandit and
makes an extradition request, I'd say that he wakes up in a DocWagon
clinic, is shown a bill, and then sent on his merry way. If they
do make a request, things could get a little warmer, though I'd seriously
consider having DocWagon tip Bandit beforehand and letting him "escape"
from their custody before the Red Samurai come for him. Why hand him over
when he can be on the street and doubtless paying for future medical
services?

And as for the tissue sample- if Bandit has a DocWagon contract,
there's already one of those in their vaults. DocWagon is also supposed
to be really, really good about not using those as ritual targets most of
the time, for the simple reason that they want people to continue
providing the samples in the first place.

Bottom line: you have an open license, but unless you have a
really good reason I wouldn't hit him too hard. It's not his fault this
happened, and DocWagon wouldn't screw one of their customers unless they
had a good reason.

-JTD
Message no. 7
From: geoff@*************.co.uk (Euphonium)
Subject: Victim of DocWagon
Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 12:18:39 +0100
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeffrey T Dougherty" <Jeffrey.T.Dougherty@********.edu>
To: "Shadowrun Discussion" <shadowrn@*****.dumpshock.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2004 5:35 AM
Subject: Re: Victim of DocWagon


> > > "Euphonium" <geoff@*************.co.uk>
> > >
> > > So, Bandit is now a prisoner of DocWagon, who have a witness to him
> > > setting one of the demolition charges, and I'm looking for ideas for
what
> > > they'll do short of killing him.
> >
>
> This seems a little excessive, bearing in mind that this was all
> originally implemented because Bandit's player missed a session, and not
> because he did something outrageously stupid. If I missed a session and
> came back to find that I had a cranial bomb or was posessed by a shedim,
> I'd be more than a little bit annoyed at the GM.

I like the Shedim idea, but I am in 2053, so it's a bit early....
I could probably come up with an interesting run about how he tries to get
his body back if there was a way for him to survive on the astral long
enough.

> As for what DocWagon would do- as noted in previous posts, they *can* do
> pretty much anything they want, since they're an extraterritorial
> corporation. (I believe they're listed as a AA in the introduction to
> Corporate Download, but I could be wrong) However, since DocWagon
> probably makes a fair amount of money off of shadowrunners who may not be
> able to afford the high-end contracts and thus have to pay big nuyen when
> they need things like HTR, they probably have an incentive not to screw
> their customers over in the absence of a pretty compelling reason.
> Honestly, how long would a medical services corporation that made a habit
> of planting cranial bombs in its customers stay in business?
>
> Unless the entity your team hit has a pretty good ID on Bandit and
> makes an extradition request,
[snip]

Thanks for all the input so far folks.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough - it was a DocWagon facility the team were
blowing up.
I don't want to penalise Bandit's player for being unable to attend, as the
player works shifts and the guy who he normally swaps with when he's on
backshift let him down.
I can think of lots of horrible things to do if Bandit had got where he is
by his own actions, but they all seem too harsh for this situation. I'm
starting to wonder about trying to come up with a reasonably plausable
escape plan for him.
Message no. 8
From: failhelm@*****.com (failhelm@*****.com)
Subject: Victim of DocWagon
Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 06:46:19 -0700
>> On Wednesday, October 06, 2004 3:19 AM Euphonium write;
>>To: Shadowrun Discussion
>>Subject: Re: Victim of DocWagon
>>
>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>Thanks for all the input so far folks.
>>
>>Maybe I wasn't clear enough - it was a DocWagon facility the team were
>>blowing up.
>>I don't want to penalise Bandit's player for being unable to
>>attend, as the
>>player works shifts and the guy who he normally swaps with
>>when he's on
>>backshift let him down.
>>I can think of lots of horrible things to do if Bandit had
>>got where he is
>>by his own actions, but they all seem too harsh for this
>>situation. I'm
>>starting to wonder about trying to come up with a reasonably plausable
>>escape plan for him.

That makes more sense...

I say you put him through no special treatment, let the council court or
lower courts deal with him accordingly. This should give this player and all
the players a chance to come up with an extraction plan. You can offer up a
running team to extract them if the players can't do it or don't think they
can. Courts takes months to get anything done, maybe a private court would
take less time, either way, it might be cheaper for a private co. to do
nothing for a while.

They get to keep the bad guy under lock and key with no penalty, he stays
out of the way and they can poke an prode him for a while. Nothing to
serious of course, just screw with the crew. Either way I see a grand
oportunity here as a GM, and the players should see it as a rare challenge.

- Failhelm
Message no. 9
From: u.alberton@*****.com (Bira)
Subject: Victim of DocWagon
Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 10:49:32 -0300
On Wed, 6 Oct 2004 12:18:39 +0100, Euphonium <geoff@*************.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Maybe I wasn't clear enough - it was a DocWagon facility the team were
> blowing up.
> I don't want to penalise Bandit's player for being unable to attend, as the
> player works shifts and the guy who he normally swaps with when he's on
> backshift let him down.

The sollution to this is simple enough:

"We're going to let ou go, but you'll have to do this little job for us..."

--
Bira
http://compexplicita.blogspot.com
Message no. 10
From: james@****.uow.edu.au (James Niall Zealey)
Subject: Victim of DocWagon
Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 09:28:23 +1000
> Max Noel <maxnoel_fr@*****.fr>
>
> These suggestions sound a little bit too harsh to me. Don't forget
> that it's not Bandit's fault (neither the player's nor the character's)
> if he ended up in that situation. All the player did was not to show up
> at the session. Unless it was an unjustified last-minute drop-out (e.g.
> the player forgot to wake up), I find it unfair to punish him for
> something which he neither caused nor took part in and over which he had
> no control at all.

First up, in my campaign if someone's not there when the players head
into a facility (or whatever), then their character is not there (for
whatever reason). This saves the problem where characters get shot up
and dead when their players aren't there, and I'll use some dramatic
license to get the PC there at a later date if the intrusion lasts until
the next session, which can be quite helpful for the PCs (like if they
need a quick getaway, the missing PC happened to still be in a car when
they show up, that sort of thing).

So I was going from the assumption that the team made a plan, started
into the facility, and then Bandit's player wasn't there next week, so
it was his choice that he took a demo pack, and his choice that he went
into the facility. That said, if bandit made bad choices in the week
that the player wasn't there, those aren't really his fault.

Beyond that, all of the "mess with him" options are more punishments for
the rest of the team than for the player of bandit. If I gave him a
cranial nuke, next time someone was assensing near him, I'd let them
notice. If someone made a biotech roll on him, they'd notice. And if I
didn't think I would ever have someone notice, I wouldn't give him that
option.

If I hit him up with psychotropic IC, I'd similarly have some way
planned of finding out what was up with him.

I'm not going to fit him with a cranial nuke and then detonate it for
fun when the party is all together or anything.

Any way you go, the player still has input, the entire team gets a
problem to deal with, you get hooks for future runs (find the key for
the nuke, get a PAB to deprogram him, find the shedim a nice home so he
quits bugging you etc) and you get "Do you remember the time we left
Bandit behind and he was fitted with this big-ass bomb? We're going back
for him!" stories.
Message no. 11
From: maxnoel_fr@*****.fr (Max Noel)
Subject: Victim of DocWagon
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 01:21:02 +0100
On Oct 7, 2004, at 00:28, James Niall Zealey wrote:

> Beyond that, all of the "mess with him" options are more punishments
> for the rest of the team than for the player of bandit. If I gave him
> a cranial nuke, next time someone was assensing near him, I'd let them
> notice. If someone made a biotech roll on him, they'd notice. And if I
> didn't think I would ever have someone notice, I wouldn't give him
> that option.

The way I figure it, they're more punishments for Bandit himself.
Sure, the cranial nuke is a good plot hook, but even if you never ever
detonate it, you'll have made a magically active character lose
Essence. Sure, he can get the bomb removed and then use the Essence
hole for a smartlink and top it off with boosted reflexes or plastic
bone lacing, but the prejudice remains.
From all the options you suggested, the shedim is the one that causes
the least harm to the character. However, the problem with it is that a
shedim is very easy to get rid of: either you banish him twice (which
is trivial if the party has another mage), or you hit Bandit until he's
unconscious and banishing it (physical harm notwithstanding, there's
potential magic loss here: that's messing around with the character
while the player can't do anything about it again).

> Any way you go, the player still has input, the entire team gets a
> problem to deal with, you get hooks for future runs (find the key for
> the nuke, get a PAB to deprogram him, find the shedim a nice home so
> he quits bugging you etc) and you get "Do you remember the time we
> left Bandit behind and he was fitted with this big-ass bomb? We're
> going back for him!" stories.

Sure. The only problem I have with all of this is that it will harm
Bandit more than the other characters.

-- Wild_Cat
maxnoel_fr at yahoo dot fr -- ICQ #85274019
"Look at you hacker... A pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting
and sweating as you run through my corridors... How can you challenge a
perfect, immortal machine?"
Message no. 12
From: loneeagle@********.co.uk (Lone Eagle)
Subject: Victim of DocWagon
Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 20:23:15 +0100
At 01:21 AM 10/7/2004, Wild_Cat wrote:
> The way I figure it, they're more punishments for Bandit himself.
> Sure, the cranial nuke is a good plot hook, but even if you never ever
> detonate it, you'll have made a magically active character lose Essence.
> Sure, he can get the bomb removed and then use the Essence hole for a
> smartlink and top it off with boosted reflexes or plastic bone lacing,
> but the prejudice remains.

Except that a cranial bomb costs no Essence IIRC.

> Sure. The only problem I have with all of this is that it will
> harm Bandit more than the other characters.

How about stealing one of Kori's ideas and implant Bandit with a simrig and
headware phone, cover it up (Laes is a beautiful thing) and turn him into a
walking bug (listening device rather than insect). Get Bandit's player in
on it and watch the other players get paranoid as hell.
Yes it hurts Bandit but life imprisonment without a SIN is no picnic either.


--
Lone Eagle
"Hold up lads, I got an idea."

www.wyrmtalk.co.uk - Please be patient, this site is under construction

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GE d++(---) s++: a->? C++(+) US++ P! L E? W++ N o? K? w+ O! M- V? PS+ PE-()
Y PGP? t+@ 5++ X- R+>+++$>* tv b+++ DI++++ D+ G++ e+ h r* y+>+++++
-----END GEEK CODE BLOCK-----

GCC0.2: y75>?.uk[NN] G87 S@:@@[SR] B+++ f+ RM(RR) rm++ rr++ l++(--) m- w
s+(+++) GM+++(-) A GS+(-) h++ LA+++ CG--- F c+
Message no. 13
From: korishinzo@*****.com (Ice Heart)
Subject: Victim of DocWagon
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 12:31:58 -0700 (PDT)
> How about stealing one of Kori's ideas and implant Bandit with a
> simrig and
> headware phone, cover it up (Laes is a beautiful thing) and turn
> him into a
> walking bug (listening device rather than insect). Get Bandit's
> player in
> on it and watch the other players get paranoid as hell.
> Yes it hurts Bandit but life imprisonment without a SIN is no
> picnic either.

One way to soften the blow for Bandit if you do something like this
is to make it easier to pick up a power focus. Make the cyberware
beta or even delta grade. The smallest impact possible. Make the
resulting headache from this be worse for the other characters than
it is for Bandit. And leave a few ways to at least patch things up
down the road.

Whatever you do, make sure the resolution of this furthers the
overall storyline.

======Korishinzo
--the best evil is so subtle it goes unnoticed until the end



_______________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today!
http://vote.yahoo.com
Message no. 14
From: james@****.uow.edu.au (James Niall Zealey)
Subject: Victim of DocWagon
Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 09:25:12 +1000
> Re: Victim of DocWagon
>
> The way I figure it, they're more punishments for Bandit himself.
> Sure, the cranial nuke is a good plot hook, but even if you never ever
> detonate it, you'll have made a magically active character lose Essence.
> Sure, he can get the bomb removed and then use the Essence hole for a
> smartlink and top it off with boosted reflexes or plastic bone lacing,
> but the prejudice remains.

I was under the impression that a brain bomb didn't take up essence. Or
is it only the nuke that does? Regardless, I wouldn't advocate removing
magic from a character.

> From all the options you suggested, the shedim is the one that
> causes the least harm to the character. However, the problem with it is
> that a shedim is very easy to get rid of: either you banish him twice
> (which is trivial if the party has another mage), or you hit Bandit
> until he's unconscious and banishing it (physical harm notwithstanding,
> there's potential magic loss here: that's messing around with the
> character while the player can't do anything about it again).
>

Yeah, but at this stage in the game, it's possible the PC's haven't met
up with Shedim yet. I had in my head the idea that the shedim would
displace the PC, so the pc could contribute from the astral, but I'm
probably wrong in that too. That's what comes of posting without your
books about.

>
> Sure. The only problem I have with all of this is that it will harm
> Bandit more than the other characters.
>

Only if you let it.

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Victim of DocWagon, you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!