PDA

View Full Version : Journal Shadowrun Campaign Journal – The Majestic 12



DigoDragon
2014-05-02, 10:19 AM
The Majestic 12 was a Shadowrun 4e campaign I ran several years ago. The players named the campaign instead of myself. It was a play on their team; a robust group of around twelve runners from all walks of life (although we’ve had three deaths and two replacements during the campaign’s run). That sounds like a lot of players, but because most of them had rough life schedules that kept them from showing up to every Saturday session (and at least two players had two different characters to choose from), rarely did I actually have more than about 5 players at any given time. Also, half the roster showed up in later sessions, joining the game in progress.

This worked itself into an unusual system that I’ve never had before: The shadowrun team was more like a business – taking contracts from Johnsons and sending out the appropriate response team for the job. Indeed, we ran with this concept for most of the latter part of the campaign (The ‘company’ front was called Minutemen Mechanics, a ‘Human Resources’ firm). The PCs made business cards and everything. Anyway…

The year was 2071 in Seattle. I gave the players a small document of the recent news of the city and what was allowed in their builds. They then proceeded to break molds left and right.

The PC Roster~

* Ian: Human Adept gunslinger. A tall and skinny pretty boy, Ian loved to dress in suits and he always wore sunglasses (even at night). He had a large fancy hat collection to go with his suits and you NEVER touch the hat. Or the suit. Really, just hands off the threads. He often mailed live rabbits to his long-distance girlfriend (who ate them in stews).

* Henry: Human Hacker who fancied himself as a ‘couch detective’, because all his skills were learned from Case Closed anime he watched. On the couch. He hated using guns almost as much as he did getting shot by them. He often spoke in bad puns, which lead to the other runners on the team to threaten him with getting shot. And thus the circle is complete…

* Super Joe: Human Streetsam. Joe was a former EOD operative for the UCAS army. He retired early and took up shadowrunning as a relaxing hobby. He tended to have very insightful thoughts when he was high on some kind of kitchen cleaner. He also tended to carry explosive materials for much the same reason. His left hand and lower arm was replaced with a grappling hook gun he nicknamed the ‘Rocket Punch’.

* Blackwolf: Elf Infiltrator and jaded conspiracy nut who quit Knight Errant when his daughter went missing 10 years ago (he blamed aliens that took over KE human resources). He loved collecting pre-awakening movies and writing remake scripts of them just to prove that Hollywood ran out of ideas in 2035 with the re-remade film ‘Star Trek 2: Khan’s Revenge’.

* Fox: Human Shaman. He came from a backwater little village to learn about technology (and to find a date). Fox quickly developed a personal vendetta against drones (and dates who worked for I.T.) more complicated than a toaster (because they tended to be armored and equipped with guns that would shoot him on sight as a trespasser. Same with dates). Fox had this strange belief that shadowrunners were always the ‘good guys’.

* Hugo: Ork Adept that loved melee combat. He was always living off the streets (even when the team had a safe house), because he hated rich folks and made it a point to always blow through his money ASAP to show it was evil. This only proved to never trust Hugo with money (and not to shake hands until he had a proper bath). Step 1 to resolve any problem was to ‘Falcon Punch’ it.

* Daphne: Elf Weapon Specialist. She was a trained sniper, but never would say from which military/nationality. She liked to flirt with the other teammates just to ruffle their feathers for a laugh. Daphne was usually calm under pressure and very much an out-of-the-box thinker. She never had life goals other than getting drunk and taking life easy.

* Sophia: Human Technomancer skilled in commanding drones and piloting vehicles. When plugged into a machine, she was skilled beast. In ‘meat space’ however, she had the most auto accidents on the team (she once crashed the team vehicle in their own garage). She named every drone she owned and treated them like pets… pets that she was never afraid to strap a bomb to and send out to blow someone up.

* Galileo: Human Mage and the team healer. His hobby was to photograph people just as they died in an effort to catalog ‘the moment the soul departs’. He also ran a blog about why toppling the CAS was a good idea (even had half the team subscribing to his crackpot newsletter). As a former Crashcart EMT he knew a number of frightening methods to torture patients, which quickly explained why he wasn’t still working for Crashcart.

* Zelda: Human Face. She was a reporter for a Seattle tabloid, but running the shadows meant she could write stories about herself (under an alias) and cash in twice on her jobs. She had some real acting skills and a good grasp of makeup and disguises (One time she got shot by the team who mistook her for someone else). She filmed a lot of the missions she went on with the team in hopes to make a ‘movie documentary’ about the importance of runners.

* Rydia: Ork Shaman and former medium-weight boxer. She went partly blind during her fighting career, but had excellent astral vision so she never bothered getting cybereye replacements. Rydia specialized in spirit summoning, banishing, and counterspelling. She also had the ability to shapeshift into a wolf, but seldom used it when other teammates joked about offering her milk-bone treats.

* Snowfire: Dragon Streetsam. As big as a troll and built like a truck, Snowfire was the muscle of the team. Instead of magic, he liked guns and mechanical toys. Snow would carry an arsenal of heavily modified guns to shoot different types of bullets (and some non-bullet ammo). His two prized weapons were a baseball bat with a laser sight (made on a dare by Super Joe) and The Vindicator, a minigun he modified to fire gel rounds (which still managed to murder every target he’s mowed down with it). Strangely, he had the highest morals of the team.

* Danny: Dwarf Ganger. Danny wore clown makeup and used it to scare folks into running instead of fighting. The chainsaw he carried was usually more effective than the makeup. Danny was good at boosting cars and quickly became the team driver (Because you don’t let Sophia drive if you have common sense). He was always the first to volunteer for a distraction and believed he was the reincarnation of a former US vice-president (which one varied depending on his mood).

* Jessica: Human Face. Jessica (known as Mrs. J to some contacts) was a negotiations guru and could convince even the tightest butt to see things her way. Sell ice to Eskimos? Jessica could convince them just give her their money. She had tons of connections and would always use information as currency (With blackmail being her equivalent to a savings bond). She was the well-connected network that helped the team find work.
[/LIST]


The NPC Roster~
These were reoccurring NPCs that the players were on a first-name basis with.

* Ms. M: The team’s favorite Johnson. They were never sure just what Mrs. M did for a living, only that this elf businesswoman was in the market of Human Resources and was the one to provide the team with their first safe-house. She never backstabbed the PCs and was a professional through and through. One time Ms. M landed herself in a hospital after someone hired a hitman on her. The PCs got together on a rampage to avenger her, to the point they demo’d a building. Ms. M meant THAT much to the team.

* Daniel: The team’s favorite fixer for acquiring stuff. The team had thwarted an attempt on Daniel’s life, so in gratitude a business relationship started up between them. Daniel would procure whatever gadget, weapon, or oddity the team needed, and the team paid fair black-market value. No one asked questions and everyone was happy.

* Aria: An AI on the matrix that somehow bought into Galileo’s online anti-CAS blog. She was a conspiracy theorist as well (getting along well with Blackwolf), so sometimes she’d hire the team to check out leads for her and gauge their credibility. This usually led to weird goose-chases, but one time the PCs actually stumbled upon some kind of craft that didn’t conform to any earth-based design they knew of. So naturally the PCs took a few blurry photos and then blew the place up in the interest of not getting eaten by anything that resembled a defrosting shapeshifting blob.


Due to the length of time since running this campaign, several sessions were missing (hereby known as missions). I’ve had to reconstruct the remaining missions based on piecemeal info players wrote down and their own personal accounts. Thus, the campaign journal you’re about to read may be full of screaming runners and burning collateral…

DigoDragon
2014-05-02, 10:24 AM
Mission 1
The players (Ian, Super Joe, Henry, Fox, & Hugo) were all given an invite by a manager within the Draco Foundation stating that they had recently inherited something related somewhat to the will left behind by the late former president Dunklezahn. Seems legit.
Due to the players being gullible fools, they totally did not question the invite and came to the meeting. The inheritance required an extraction job, as what they had inherited was in a safe and the key to the safe was misplaced in an old warehouse at the Seattle docks (okay guys, there’s a physical). So the players introduce themselves (the names above show how clever they are with street names, ho ho ho), took the job, and went off to the warehouse.

Some legwork dug up that the last owner of the warehouse had been dead for quite some time, so the stuff left in the warehouse was left neglected. The PCs cased the area to dodge the one bored Lonestar Cop there and broke into the warehouse with the simplest of plans: a rock through a window). They found themselves as kids in a toy store run by Ozzie Osborne because the stuff they found was Weird. A few examples --

An old 2004 Hummer H2, heavily dented up from a roll. The engine was made of shattered ceramic parts.
A disassembled laboratory laser with a 5-prong power plug (Assembly instructions not included).
Twenty-five pounds of assorted old medicines in sealed bottles. Labels date back as far as 30 years ago.
A shoe box with the ash remains of someone by the name of John Doe. The box label stated cause of death was ‘dragon’.


Once the keys were located they returned to the meeting place and the safe was open. The team was given the contents, amounting to some cash and several items: a crystal dagger, a pair of aviator goggles, a crank-powered flashlight, a pocket watch, a compass, and a leather belt. The mages in the party noticed the items had vague astral signatures, as if they items could be awakened…
Moment of Hilarity: There was rat that jumped out between two crates and scared the entire team. The rat was immediately hit by 5 bullets, 2 shotgun shells, and a force bolt. There wasn’t enough of the target left to know what the heck it was they all shot up.
Relevant Mission Quotes HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17214997&viewfull=1#post17214997).


Mission 2
Through various points of contact, the runners (Ian, Super Joe, Henry, Fox, Hugo, and Blackwolf) get hired by Ms. M for the first time.
A street gang was troubling a Redmond business Ms. M had relations to, so the mission was to scare off the gang (but don’t leave a body count. Cops hate body counts). In addition to payment, Ms. M offered up an abandoned building nearby that the team could use as a base of operations (she believed that having runners in the neighborhood would keep the gangs away).

The plan was to rent a car, drive over to the gang in suits, and scare them off as if they were from the government. Due to the vagueness of their communication, what actually happened was:

1. Super Joe hits two gangers with the car. They aren’t killed, but ribs and legs were definitely broken.
2. Fox jumps out of the car screaming that he’s from the IRS and that the gang should ‘drop down and give him twenty’.
3. Henry proceeds to block the gangers commlinks to prevent anyone from calling help.
4. The runners start a contest on who can hit the most kneecaps.

Several rounds of gunfire later (and one vehicle fire. note to self, never flip a mobile meth lab), the gang was ousted from the area and the neighborhood slightly safer for it. The old building that Ms. M gave to the PCs turned out to be an abandoned police station. The players made it their own HQ for staging future missions. The building was fairly reinforced, it had room and privacy for training and tinkering, and was within biking distance of a Stuffer Shack. Score!
Moment of Hilarity: When the PCs first checked out their new digs, Super Joe got locked in one of the prison holding cells on a dare to see if the lock still worked. Yup, it did. The team had to physically break the lock to get him out, not noticing that Joe had simply climbed out of the bar-less window.
Relevant Mission Quotes HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17219320&viewfull=1#post17219320).


Mission 4
The runners (Ian, Super Joe, Henry, Fox, Hugo, Blackwolf) are hired by Ms. M again for a heist at a party of a very rich man (with a fetish for dogs). Since they were being paid egregiously for the job, the players assumed this was going to end in fire.
The target object of this heist was a painting of former president FDR with his dog Fala. The team was given a counterfeit painting to make the switch so that the owner doesn’t find out until it is too late. Some legwork revealed that the rich man in question is a Mr. Von Sault, eccentric millionaire who deals in artwork auctions and has ties to the Yakuza… of which several will be at this party. Uh oh.

The team located the catering service being used for Von Sault's party. The plan was to hijack the delivery truck enroute and disguise themselves as the caterers. Super Joe wanted to bring grenades, but his idea was vetoed because the idea was to ‘capture the truck, not occupy it’. They successfully take the truck, lock the caterers safely in a roach-motel (unconscious, but with bottled water and packs of coy-crisps), and drive to the party.

‘Dog Fetish’ was a slight understatement when the team arrived. This rich man had his entire staff dressed in provocative attire that evoked the dog motif. The topiary was dog shaped, the walls were decorated in dog art… they almost expected the serving trays to be dog bowls (Okay, it was tempting when I wrote this mission). With nearly unlimited access to three-quarters of the mansion (But spending a lot of it gambling at the poker table), the team coordinates and rifles through hundreds of dog-related artworks until they locate the FDR painting. This took a while and required Ian using the dumbwaiter to get to the third floor (for reasons). Ian also broke into Von Sault’s bedroom (unrelated reasons) and snooped around Von Sault’s personal diary. He found that Mr. Von Sault and a few Yakuza associates had been laundering a little of the crime org’s money under the table. The runners could gain a lot of blackmail with this… nah, Henry drops the info on several commlinks and stands back to see if this escalates a fight.

It escalates a fight alright, a Gunfight. The Yakuza start shooting each other and the team now has to switch the paintings and get out without being killed! They manage their escape without needing to pull out guns (though Super Joe broke a bodyguard’s arm with a baguette). They were even nice enough to return the stolen catering truck with the delivery personnel they kidnapped (minus a cake and two crates of fancy hors d'oeuvre. Hey a runner’s got to eat). The team gets paid and they go back to the old warehouse from Mission 1 to steal the busted Hummer. The team fixes it up with their big paycheck and now they have a viable mode of transport.
Moment of Hilarity: Ian and Fox played a few hands of Poker just to get some gossip. Fox was so distracted by the maid staff that during his turn to deal, he left the instruction card on how to play Poker in the deck. In order to save Fox from getting lynched by the other players, Ian punched Fox to the floor and dragged him to the bathroom to ‘personally teach him a lesson’. It worked as the other players went back to playing.
Relevant Mission Quotes HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17227937&viewfull=1#post17227937).

Amidus Drexel
2014-05-02, 12:47 PM
Bahahahaha, this is too good! Please tell me more is coming. :smallbiggrin:

Deffers
2014-05-02, 12:56 PM
Yes! I'd been waiting for this for forever. You always have the best no-context quotes. These missions sound awesome.

DigoDragon
2014-05-05, 10:20 AM
Shadowrun Campaign Journal – The Majestic 12

Mission 5
Sophia the technomancer joins the party (much to team hacker’s annoyance) and to prove her worth, she tags along with Blackwolf, Fox, Ian, Super Joe, Hugo, and Henry for the next mission. It’s a big party this time and the job is at a nice Seattle park for some basic bodyguard duty. So again… expect it to end in fire.

A well-known business woman in Bellevue was killed in a targeted bomb plot. The police have been about as helpful as a concrete sponge, so other business-folk that worked with the late victim are nervous. They decide to transfer some assets around in a private meeting and hire our team to ensure no one interrupts the meeting. The PCs stage themselves outside the enclosed pavilion where the meeting takes place.

So stand guard here and make sure no one enters. Easy enough. Oh hey, there’s a police convention going on across the street. What are the odds?
(Cue Wuxing aerial drone demo over the park and scaring the pants off Henry).

The first bout of trouble came in the form of a fashion-killing businessman named Renaldo (along with two female ork bodyguards). Renaldo was pretty upset that he wasn’t invited to this meeting and demanded to be let in. Ian tried turning him away, but Renaldo got in Ian’s face. Before a fight broke out, Super Joe intervened. Joe threatened to shoot Renaldo right here, in a public park, with every cop in the greater Seattle area across the street. And just to prove he was going to do it, Joe removed the ammo clip from his gun and cycled out the bullet in the chamber.

Renaldo walked away. Very quickly.

Meanwhile, Hugo and Fox had to deal with a five-year old girl that was making simple magic tricks happen for kicks. Despite them both being awakened characters, NEITHER figured out that she was a rogue air spirit. Their assumption? Micro-Gundam. Because obviously. But it’s okay! Because the air spirit runs off when two gangers on motorcycles come into the park with flamethrowers.

The team quickly assembles and discretely take out the gangers with sniper shots before the thugs got to test their new-found toys on the nearest tree. Police response time was 10 seconds. Gee, wonder why? Thanks to their discrete method, the PCs are not suspected and are left alone by the cops. A news reporter shows up at the scene and gets the PC’s take on the gangers, as well as why they are milling about the park pavilion so intently. After hustling Henry in a bet, they befriend Zelda (player was absent, so she was NPC’d at the time here) and she joins the team with the deal to get exclusive runner stories for her help in legwork.

The PCs assumed the two gangers with flamethrower was the big encounter, so it took a while until they noticed a lawn car drone zipping toward the pavilion at high speed. Ian knocks it over with a well-placed shot and the team checks it out. Once opened, they find that it is armed with pruning shears, mulch dispenser, and a HIGH-EXPLOSIVE bomb.

Okay, you many now panic.

Super Joe disables the bomb successfully and the business meeting concludes without further incident. The team is paid and that is that. …except that I the DM made classic blunder #6: Never leave the PCs with a perfectly useable bomb. I had to think of something to get that bomb off their hands… and so I did.

Relevant Mission Quotes HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17227937&viewfull=1#post17227937)and HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17234060&viewfull=1#post17234060).

Moment of Hilarity: Fox and Hugo thinking the rogue air spirit was a Gundam and chasing it up a tree. The spirit used its accident power to make the two runners fall out of the tree. Bonus hilarity—at one point Blackwolf was being bothered by some pigeons that smelled food on him. He chased them away, but then they came back in a swarm and attacked for his sandwich! :3


Mission 6
The team picks up Daphne into the ranks and I hatch a plan to relieve the PCs of that explosive device they had in their possession. And the easiest way to do that is to PAY them to use it.

The Johnson hires Sophia, Blackwolf, Fox, Super Joe, Daphne, Ian, and Hugo (Henry’s player only stayed an hour this session) to blow up an automated Docwagon medical factory. The players waffled on whether they should take this job, but the paycheck offer won them over within minutes (haha, suckers). Ok, let’s go be bad guys!

The players did their research on the target facility, acquired some more explosives to go with their bomb, and made some pretty good disguises to appear like they were an inspection team. One commendable thing they agreed upon: Try not to kill anyone. Well that rule lasted long enough to get into the central building.

And then there was gunfire.

Hugo blew his cover when he started sampling the meds at the facility, prompting Super Joe to blow his cover trying to explain that the inspection was on drug quality and taste for cereal (no inspection team simply ‘tastes’ the drugs. Also, cereal?!). The players quickly drew weapons and used nonlethal gel ammo to bring down the entire security staff present. Security put up a valiant fight, but Sophia had wireless communications jammed and Daphne cut the hardline. There will be no backup arriving tonight. Also, the PCs learned that driving a forklift loaded with crates is a really unfair advantage versus gunfire, but you can’t see where you’re going.

This actually led to worry about damaging stuff with the forklift… even though they’re here to blow up the facility?
*Facepalm*

After winning the fight, the PCs dumped security unconscious by the roadside. They steal some of the medical supplies from the bins (and for some reason Super Joe stole one of the smaller A/C air handlers from the roof) before they set the explosives and bail. The facility explodes in a wonderful night-time fireball while the PCs watch from a nice far-away location.

The stolen medical supplies? Well, turns out the team donated that stuff to an orphanage as a means of ‘Balancing our karma’. Wow… I had to give bonus points for that. Still not sure what Joe intends to do with the air handler and I decided not to ask (I found out later when Joe uses it as a replacement to the busted one back at their safe house. Ahhh, now it makes sense).

Relevant Mission Quotes HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17239772&viewfull=1#post17239772).

Moment of Hilarity: When the team dropped off the medical supplies, the kids asked what they did for jobs. They started out with the cover that they were ‘troubleshooters’, until Blackwolf let slip that ‘where there’s trouble, we shoot it’. Way to leave your mark on the youth, team. :3

Cristo Meyers
2014-05-05, 02:32 PM
Moment of Hilarity: Fox and Hugo thinking the rogue air spirit was a Gundam and chasing it up a tree. The spirit used its accident power to make the two runners fall out of the tree. Bonus hilarity—at one point Blackwolf was being bothered by some pigeons that smelled food on him. He chased them away, but then they came back in a swarm and attacked for his sandwich! :3

Shadowrun pigeons: they'll cut you.

At least they weren't Canadian Geese...


Moment of Hilarity: When the team dropped off the medical supplies, the kids asked what they did for jobs. They started out with the cover that they were ‘troubleshooters’, until Blackwolf let slip that ‘where there’s trouble, we shoot it’. Way to leave your mark on the youth, team. :3

Look on the bright side...maybe the kid would just look into playing Paranoia...

DigoDragon
2014-05-06, 02:31 PM
Missing too many details of two missions here unfortunately. Mission #9 dealt with removing ghouls, while Mission #12 was a snatch job.

Mission 7
If this team had one glaring weakness, it was hearing about children in need. So to exploit this (as traditional for DMs like me), a Johnson hired a team to rescue a kidnapped child. Our team consisted of Blackwolf, Daphne, Fox, Ian, Super Joe, and Sophia. Our opponents? Another runner team. One with a Name.

The Johnson gives the team a file about a young girl who was kidnapped from her suburban home. The Johnson could only assume they were professionals because the kidnappers bypassed the house’s security and left no evidence of their break in. Hmm, a tough job! The PCs begin their leg work at the residence, interviewing the single father and checking out the house. Where’s the mom?

Check the urn over the fireplace.

Oh. Um… right. Sophia threads a sprite into the home’s ‘Kinda-smart’ network and finds that someone installed two spy devices in the house. Here’s where the ‘Kinda’ part comes in—one device was a motion sensor and the other a mic. Both devices were routed through the home’s alarm system, which allows the installer a back door to turn off the alarm. The alarm company would sometimes see the extra signal through the network as garbage code under the header of ‘Test’, which they assumed is just the home’s user testing their network. Which (according to the logs) keeps triggering about 3-4 times a week.

Who tests their home alarm like that?!

The runners disable the spyware and interview the neighbors. Several hours and some greased palms later and the team had a hit—a witness recalled a truck driving through the neighborhood several times over the last week, but it’s not local and the truck never stopped at any house. The team calls in a favor to a cop they know and he runs the plate for them. Turns out to be a fake registration, but with a proper address. The runners then go to the post office to see if anyone lives there. Turns out no, they recently moved, but one greased palm later and the PCs got the forwarding address off the archives.

This leads the PCs to a hacker-for-hire who was paid by someone for surveillance of the house. The PCs beat the payor info out of him (and leave him with some money to fix the broken cow lamp they trashed) and learn that the girl was kidnapped by a shadowrun team named ‘The Eliminators’. Fancy.

Why don’t we have a cool team name like that?
Heck, why don’t we have cool runner names? I mean, who’s ever feared someone named Daphne?

One last round of legwork in the shadows and the PCs learn where The Eliminators are hiding out—a closed down recycling plant. The PCs don’t even bother with negotiations. A grand firefight broke out, 6 versus 7, with semi-automatics, burst-fire, quips, and grenades whizzing back and forth among boxes, drums, and through office windows (Did I mention how much of this place is flammable?). Daphne proved her worth as a professional sniper with a head shot to the enemy team’s leader. Yeah, not soaking that one, are you big guy?

The players' dice were running hot and they managed to put the enemy force on ice after several rounds of intense fighting. Thankfully their crazy gunfight didn’t get the kidnapped girl killed, who was locked in a closet at the adjoining office (brick walls saved their charge). Let this be a lesson to you Johnsons~

You want to break something? Hire these PCs.
You want to save someone? Hire someone else.

The players lick their wounds, pick up the girl, and take her back home to the father.

Relevant Mission Quotes HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17246548&viewfull=1#post17246548).

Moment of Hilarity: When the team was interrogating the hacker-for-hire, Fox suggested that Sophia try and seduce the info out of him. Sophia responded with a slap to Fox’s face. Then Daphne slapped Fox for not suggesting her to do the seducing because Daphne sees herself as the prettier one. Would Daphne seduce the hacker? No, of course not. It’s just the principal of the thing. :smalltongue:


Mission 8
This is the first official mission where we have Rydia and Snowfire join the game! The Johnson hires the team (Blackwolf, Daphne, Fox, Rydia, Sophia, and Snowfire) to infiltrate a research facility and locate a worker named Kat. The target hasn’t been heard from in over a day and the Johnson wants to ensure Kat is still alive. Heh heh… research facility… suuure…

A terrible thunderstorm rolled through the Redmond barrens as the PCs arrived at the address given to them. They do a little searching and find a defunct security system guarding some kind of disguised elevator. Sophia comments that it’s too darn quiet here (referring to the lack of wireless network coverage), but Blackwolf takes it meaning no one is watching them on camera. So Blackwolf breaks open the elevator door with reckless abandon!

And gets the shaft.

Elevator shaft that is. Did I mention I had an MP3 player loaded with Silent Hill music? Oh yeah, totally worth the investment. So the team climbs down the shaft using the emergency ladder and they end up in an underground facility that seems to have no running power, no running water, and clashing wall-to-floor colors. The Ares logo sends Blackwolf into a fit of foaming at the mouth because he hates Ares (mutual feeling I’m sure) and his ranting alerts the attention of a security team, including the most Wannabe-Goth Security Troll in all of Seattle.

However, he was still a Troll, which means he could put people through walls. Just ask Fox. And Sophia. :D

Daphne and Blackwolf riddle the troll full of holes, which really angers him more than anything, until Snowfire’s dice finally stop glitching and give the dragon a good roll to wrestle the troll to the ground. Rydia uses her wolf form to pin another security guard down and Fox digs himself and Sophia out of the holes in the wall (darn cheap limestone construction).

After rendering the troll unconscious (and the other two guards dead) they decide to interrogate their prisioners for… oh, wait. Can’t interrogate dead/unconscious. Meh, we’ll just steal commlinks and read their emails! Okay, so what the runners learn is that this place is a secret research lab that studies insect spirits. They had two down here just before the power went out. The security team (then about seven men strong) managed to kill one spirit, but couldn’t finish off the other (Snowfire suggested to name it Fluffy if they capture it). Fox did his best impression of colonial marine Hudson (Game over man!) and against the team’s better judgment they find the stairs down.

The lower decks were cold and scary. The walls were painted with what were once security officers and scientists. The PCs did find Kat, but unfortunately she was dead from blood loss escaping an insect spirit. The team gets some evidence of her demise and decide to leave before…

…the insect spirit is standing behind us, isn’t it?

Yup.

Luckily this one was badly injured, but it still managed to chew up the team before going down. The team had a pretty successful plan of attack: Sophia cries in the corner, Rydia fails at summoning anything due to the background count, Snowfire does his impression of an ottoman under the spirit, and we had a contest between Blackwolf, Daphne, and Fox on who gets tossed around the most by this creature.

Finally the thing goes down with magical support from Rydia and Fox, so they decide never to fight one of those. Like, Ever. They leave the place quickly (stealing a few medical supplies on the way out to patch themselves up) and return to their Johnson with the bad news. The Johnson is understandable and pays them without much said.

The team then goes to a dive and drinks. Seriously. Even the light-weight wallflower Sophia just downs shots of whiskey until she passes out. Apparently I did too good of a job shaking up the players that they Roleplay this out splendidly. :3

Relevant Mission Quotes HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17255409&viewfull=1#post17255409).

Moment of Hilarity: The team trying to fight the insect spirit. It was meant to be moderately tough, but bad dice rolls nearly killed two teammates. The PCs threw a few Hellboy and Ghostbusters quotes around and just played up the aspect of the fight being a complete botch job.


Mission 10
The rare mission where I had a full house of PCs show up! So, I open with the PCs from the last mission introducing Rydia and Snowfire to the rest of the team. Rydia was well received, but Snowfire? Well a running gag became who Snow would eat first for being a wimp- Ian or Henry (Snowfire said neither, he doesn’t eat junk food). But enough banter, let’s do some wet work!

The runners were hired by a Johnson to assassinate Michael Davenport, the COO of DocWagon Medical Technologies, in one week at a fancy hotel in downtown Seattle. With a full team ready (Blackwolf, Daphne, Fox, Henry, Hugo, Ian, Rydia, Sophia, Super Joe, and Zelda) and the pay well enough to not ask questions (yeah right), the team cases the hotel that their target will be giving a speech at. The first thing they began planning for was a double-cross.

Second thing—donut and coffee run.

Mr. Davenport was apparently addressing the Board of Directors with his speech. The hotel’s convention hall was pretty spacious, so they had lots of options on positioning. Daphne was set up above the vaulted ceiling tiles as the primary sniper and Ian as the secondary. Henry and Sophia had hotel and police band matrix duty split between them. Fox and Rydia scanned for spirits and magical threats with one air spirit on call by Rydia. This left Super Joe and Snowfire as scouts outside the hotel while Blackwolf, Hugo, and Zelda dressed up as attendees to the shindig. The plan was one quick shot to the heart and then escape with the panicked mob to the streets where two vehicles were awaiting their use for covert escape.

On the evening of the speech, they executed their plan and Daphne… well executed Davenport. The shot to the heart was spot-on and the panic went exactly as expected. However, the PCs overlooked one cruicial detail that should have been obvious.

Mr. Davenport was a Platinum member of DocWagon's HTR medical plan.

The High-Threat Response team in the hotel was on the scene in seconds hooking Davenport to a trauma device and racing him out the door. Well this was no good!

Henry and Sophia attempted to jam the exits with automated door malfunctions and cleaning drones as obstacles, but Rydia jumped the gun and let the air spirit materialize in the lobby. It took a swing at Davenport. The HTR team defended the dying COO valiantly (plus, one of the four teammates was a skilled mage) so the air spirit get a face full of Manabolt.

The rest of the HTR team called for a chopper to airlift Davenport out. Blackwolf, Fox, and Ian fail to catch the HTR team (instead catching bullets) before the medics managed to take control of a freight elevator to the roof (and of the 3 remaining members, one is a skilled hacker that manages to wrestle control from Henry just after booting Sophia offline with Black Hammer).

Son of a sailor! Does anybody have a plan C?!

Now, what we have here is a ‘Homer Moment’, a situation where laziness and stupidity win despite the odds because luck rolled a Nat 20 on the die. Super Joe and Snowfire had been on the roof drinking during most of this. They figured the rest of the runner team had things under control. So now the entirety of this mission’s success depended on these two buzzed Duke boys to fight off three highly trained HTR DocWagon goons!

Super Joe had brought grenades. D:

*Ding!*

Joe and Snowfire opened up with burstfire at the freight elevator as soon as the doors opened, catching the HTR team by surprise. Not wanting to risk Davenport, the HTR team shoots back while their hacker closes the door. The two groups exchange a round of heavy gunfire and the elevator door begins its slow transition to close. Super Joe hands Snowfire a grenade and shouts “Yo Joe!” at the HTR team. They throw their grenades at the elevator. Snowfire’s lob bounced off the door and to the left. Joe’s grenade sailed right between the doors and landed on Davenport just as the elevator doors sealed shut.

KA-BOOM – GOAAAAAAAAAAAAL!!

The elevator is full of chunky salsa and Snowfire’s errant grenade damages an air handler on the roof. The smoke attracts the attention of the DocWagon helicopter. They ask no questions, they open fire on Joe and Snow with the mounted machine guns. The two jump off the far side of the hotel and rappel down the side of the building.

Improvising the rappel part.

The runners managed to escape the carnage uncaught, but not without cracked ribs, bullet holes, 1st and 2nd degree burns, two sprained ankles, and one concussion. They took their payment quietly and agreed to take the next couple of months off…

Relevant Mission Quotes HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17264233&viewfull=1#post17264233).

Moment of Hilarity: Super Joe’s game-winning grenade throw into the freight elevator. Never doubt that Edge stat, because it was what allowed Joe to get past the penalties for drunkenness, distance, and gunshot wounds. There was no need to bother calculating damage for that frag grenade. Joe won the internet.


Mission 11
The campaign picks up about two months later. The runners have been in hiding for the most part (Henry, Sophia, and Zelda worked on cleaning up any remaining data trails over the ensuing weeks) but after blowing much of their money on fancy getaways, the team needed to come back to work. Well, we ticked off DocWagon to no end, so who’s next on the list? How about the Yakuza?

The team of Blackwolf, Fox, Ian, Daphne, Sophia, and (recently joined) Galileo are brought in by Mr. Johnson to infiltrate a Yakuza compound and rescue all the slaves there before they are sold to fiendish corporations, criminals, and people who talk in the theatre.

Legwork to find the compound wasn’t too difficult, which lead the PCs to suspect the Johnson had a hand in this. A couple phone calls later to a connection they had and suspicions have merit. The goons running this slave ring have been having a falling out. They’re split into two factions over how to run the slave ring, which has led to an abundance of unsold slaves.

So collateral will be an issue here if a gunfight breaks out.

The runners rent two buses for transporting the slaves later and attempt the stealth method of getting in. Fox’s invisibility spell on Daphne fails, getting her shot by a guard and leaving her hiding behind a limo while armed goons descend upon her. Blackwolf and Ian lay down some cover fire for Galileo to reach Daphne. Sophia remote pilots one of the busses into the compound (literally. She drives the bus through a wall and into the sniper tower, causing the tower to fall and burst into flames).

At this point it was chaos and bullets.

Bullets were not conserved as the runner team shot up their opponents and escaped with as many slaves as they could. There were some losses, but a few rounds at a bar will help them forget that part. The bloodshed did ding them a bit on payment from the Johnson, but as the PCs hinted that they might know his connection in this, the Johnson simply concluded the business transaction without dinging the runners’ reputation.

It wasn’t until after the fact that the runner’s best guess came forward that the Johnson was likely one of the two factions at the compound. Now that he was in possession of the slaves, he could do business as he wanted (and with the other faction pretty much out of the way as a bonus).

Relevant Mission Quotes HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17276227&viewfull=1#post17276227).

Moment of Hilarity: Daphne being pinned down by the goons with a grievous wound. Daphne was one of those kind of players that doesn’t do ‘panic’ in their RP and instead it just comes off as… angry. She chewed out Fox for screwing up the invisibility spell. XD

Sith_Happens
2014-05-06, 04:49 PM
Man, Shadowrun EMTs do NOT screw around.

DigoDragon
2014-05-07, 09:15 AM
Man, Shadowrun EMTs do NOT screw around.

They really don't, and this HTR team blindsided the PCs pretty hard. :smallbiggrin: The players learned to do a little more background checking on their targets besides "Name & Occupation".

DigoDragon
2014-05-08, 09:27 AM
Shadowrun Campaign Journal – The Majestic 12

Mission 13
There’s a long-standing tradition in Shadowrun that runners must always expect to get backstabbed by their Johnson. I’m not the sort of DM that really likes to frustrate my players that way, so I usually don’t. However, I didn’t say that I never backstab my players…


The team (comprised of Ian, Henry, Hugo, Sophia, and Snowfire) met up at a nice yacht and were hired by a Johnson to break into a factory belonging to the Wonderland Toy Corporation (the fact that it was abbreviated as WoTC went over their heads). The job was to sabotage production of the new "Tickle Me Dunky" toy, a little plush dragon based on the UCAS' first (and only) dragon president. According to the commercials that Henry downloaded, the doll has an interactive computer inside that can talk and learn. So basically it was a Furby expy.

Snowfire instantly wanted one.

The team did their usual legwork and found security to be light (compared to places they normally break into). They infiltrate the factory during the night shift when the place was automated with only a skeleton crew to watch over the production. The crew was easily taken out non-lethally and locked up in the break room.

So as the team locates the section where Dunky Dolls are being assembled, they got to thinking about the motives behind this job (While Snowfire helps himself to one of the completed dolls on the line). Most likely the Johnson was associated with a rival toy company that wanted to beat WoTC to the shelves with their own product. Also, why is the silent alarm already triggered in the office computer? Were they expecting us to show up or…

Oh no.

Seattle PD and SWAT show up before the runners could leave and now they’re faced with the fact that their Johnson may have thrown them under the bus. But why?! First, the team escaped into the basement and through an unused section of sewer line that dropped them into Seattle Transit Tunnel (never leave home without some explosives!) and then they raced away to a nice dark seedy bar where they hid for a moment to collect their thoughts on their Johnson (I don’t remember how they found a tarp to disguise Snowfire as a troll, but drunks don’t ask questions in this bar).

Henry led a hacking campaign to uncover who tipped off the police (and SWAT) to their location. The data trail led back to the VP of WoTC itself, who looks a lot like their Johnson! The runner team now break into his house and go through his personal computer records. They find that they were set up as a distraction meant to tie up most of the city’s law enforcement while another runner team broke into a Boeing warehouse to steal rocket parts.

Oh, we’ll send this Johnson on a flight all right… to the moon!

The PCs couldn’t stop the second team’s theft, but they got info on when the Johnson’s next hit will be: a medical laboratory to steal nuclear material. Okay, the connection possibilities are a bit scary. Two nights later, the runners surprise the Johnson’s second team at the lab and take out the enemy in a swift 1.5 rounds of combat. The Johnson happened to be on that team though, and since dead men tell no tales, the PCs have to settle for the booby prize:

Hocking used weaponry for petty cash.

So, the net was a loss of time and money, but at least they got some revenge out of it. Dunky Dolls hit the shelves on time, and Snowfire annoyed the pants off the other runners by making the doll repeat dirty jokes.

Relevant Mission Quotes missing from this session. :c

Moment of Hilarity: Snowfire teaching the Dunky Doll to swear. Anyone who owed a Furby would know the result of that kind of shenanigan.


Mission 14
It was a dark and stormy evening in Seattle. We’re talking heavy sleet being struck by lighting in a manastorm kind of bad weather here. The Seattle infrastructure was pretty much at a standstill as residents stayed home. Power was intermittent, temperatures were dropping fast, and the PCs got a call from a Johnson with what will be the strangest job yet.

Blackwolf, Fox, Ian, Henry, Hugo, Sophia, and Super Joe were hired by a Mrs. Johnson via teleconference. The job was to travel to Blake Island and investigate the murder of her late father, Dr. J Robert Lucky.

Not so lucky now, is he?

The Runners (not smart enough to stay inside during a hell-storm) accepted and braved the cold to the mansion. Legwork revealed that A) the mansion was off the grid and other than a couple tax forms at city hall, it was nonexistent on any map or directory, and B) Dr. Lucky never had a daughter. Heck, he never married in any official record. Eh, curiosity got the better of them and the team stole chartered a ferry out to the island.

At the mansion the runners were met by the butler Wadsworth and asked to come in and stay for dinner since the storm outside would make heading home dangerous. The team quickly sees that Dr. Lucky isn’t dead. He’s alive and well (or what passes for that in an 85-year old man with terminal cancer) as the doctor sits in the study with his Irish Terrier (named Shamrock). There were some other guests here too, including a crooked cop, a parapsychologist, and a banker, but the runners didn’t have a ‘Clue’ what was going on.

Mwahaha.

The PCs wouldn’t figure out that they’ve been hijacked by their DM until halfway through dinner, where Dr. Lucky states that this will be his last meal with them. As if on cue, the power goes and a gun is discharged. Once the lights come back the doctor is clearly dead on the floor. What the runners can piece together is that the doctor was killed by magic (which could also account for why night-vision gear failed to work when the lights went out). But then who fired the gun?

A little forensic sleuthing finds the bullet in a wall, and that the shooter had to have been standing at the main doorway of the dining room. The runners take control of the situation and go to ensure the murderer (likely a mage/awakened metahuman) didn’t escape the mansion. The storm is still horrible outside and a quick check of the mansion’s security system turns up no evidence that anyone has left the home. A scream is heard from the front door and everyone races over to the scene.

The cop is now dead. Throat slashes, gun missing.

Oh no, the murderer is still here.

The team uses the buddy system to ensure at least one PC is with each NPC at all times as they split up to scour the mansion for… (ugh) …clues. As they explore the mansion and sift through Dr. Lucky’s personal things, they find that the late doctor had been a computer engineer for a rocket company (recently bought out by Ares). Even better, Lucky had amassed a lot of evidence that the NPCs here are all thieves, scammers, and spies who were cashing in on Dr. Lucky’s fortune while the doctor was frail and dying in these last years of his life.

After the murderer killed the cook and the banker, Super Joe finds the pet dog’s body. Buried in the backyard. It’s been dead for days. So then, what was the dog Dr. Lucky was seen with?!

Answers they shall receive when it turns out the maid Yvette was having an affair with a werewolf, an awakened creature that could take the shape of a dog! With that secret out, the werewolf revealed itself and murdered the maid. Wadsworth led the runners in the attack to stop the monster which led to a fierce fight in the bedroom. Once killed (Super Joe blew it up into unidentifiable chunks) a team of FBI agents show up to the mansion.

Wadsworth reveals that he’s an undercover Federal Agent and that there was a conspiracy here to steal UCAS government secrets from Dr. Lucky’s past employment with the intent to sell them on the black market! All these other NPCs were either in on that conspiracy, or were wanted con artists with a long history of stealing from helpless old folks. The Runner's case was now solved (If a bit weird) and Wadsworth lets the team all go… on the stipulation that this all remains a secret. The team is more than ready to forget this night.

They got paid for their troubles by the Johnson upon returning to Seattle and then drink into the wee morning hours. The PCs then swear off board games Forever. XD

Relevant Mission Quotes HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17288501&viewfull=1#post17288501).

Moment of Hilarity: Pretty much this entire mission. I ran the PCs through a crazy game of Clue (though instead of Mr. Body, I referenced Dr. Lucky from the Clue parody game 'Kill Doctor Lucky') and despite the names and motives of the NPCs, they didn’t pick up on what they were playing until the dinner. I pulled all the stops though: the secret passages in the mansion, the quoting of pretty much every good Clue movie line, the mysterious well-hidden murders, it was probably my favorite mission in the entire campaign. :3


Mission 15
The worst thing a Johnson can do with this team when it comes to an extraction job, is tell the team that they want the person ‘dead or alive’. Guess what option the PCs immediately picked?

I suppose its recompense for the last mission (apparently Clue was a bit too cheesy for them), but let’s begin with our team—Blackwolf, Daphne, Fox, Super Joe, Snowfire, and Zelda. They’re hired by a Johnson to locate and capture an escaped criminal who was going to be put on trial for the murder of two kids. Because this criminal has several ties to a mob in Cali Free State, the red tape is thicker than concrete soup due to the mob paying off the police not to go looking for this person of interest.

The team likes the angle here. Johnson has a sense of justice, the PCs have a sense of breaking things.

So yes, the PCs did ask if the wanted man should be brought in dead or alive. The Johnson said either state is fine as long as there’s a body to I.D. once the PCs deliver the criminal to his custody. Whatever it takes, bring this criminal in. GM Blunder # 15: When the players are given a choice on the Violence Scale of ‘1 to Murder’, they do not disappoint any ammo vendors in Seattle.

Okay, brace yourselves.

I had made this mission doable because both team hackers were absent. The PCs insisted I work around that, so I NPC’d them to do one quick search job on the Johnson. PCs learn he’s Lt. Castle of Seattle PD. If the cops are hiring runners to capture criminals, they must really be desperate. Anyway, putting the hackers away and booting the PCs to the streets so that they can do their own legwork.

The team makes a few calls and get a few leads. The team starts with the most out-of-the-way areas first to search for this criminal (not a bad idea). It takes about a day and the breaking of a few ganger noses for info, but the team locates the criminal in a rundown mostly vacant suburban neighborhood.

After getting surveillance confirmation of the site (they don’t have proof the criminal is there, but they did find a lot of mobsters hanging in a duplex, so good enough for them) the team got personal with sub-machine guns, grenades, lighting bolts, and burst-fire sniper rifles.

I’m scared.

The target is a two-story duplex with reinforced doors and windows. Now, I had made the mission out where some stealth and charisma can get the PCs in the front door (or back door depending), but no, remember my mistake. The PCs load up a van and drive into the front lawn with guns blazing. They had an initiative contest on who got off the first shot!

There’s no kill like overkill I guess. Super Joe slides home-made fire bombs under every parked car to set them ablaze. Daphne climbs up a neighboring home to take a sniping position. Blackwolf coordinates everyone else to surround the duplex and shoot everything. The gangsters inside had home field advantage (if you want to call it that) and two mages. Fox keeps one mage busy, but the other manages to summon an earth spirit that tears apart the team’s van like tissue paper. Zelda is the first to drop (due to not being an armored streetsam) and Fox pulls her out of the fight for medical attention. Once stabilized, Fox gets back into the fray (borrowing Zelda's gun).

Super Joe manages to get access to one of the two garages. He douses the room in gasoline and lights it on fire. Now the mobs have to deal with part of their duplex burning down. Did I mention this was a mostly abandoned neighborhood? Yeah, it’s on the far side of Redmond where there is no police or firefighter coverage. Have fun with that.

And then Super Joe for once runs out of grenades. This is scary because by this point, half the duplex on fire, the other half collapsed from foam explosives, Blackwolf and Snowfire have broken down the back door and are hosing down the entire first floor with bullets, Daphne has managed to kill every mook and goon that has attempted to make a run for it, and Fox managed to summon a fire spirit to ensure the embers keep warm.

Can’t spell slaughter without laughter?

A destroyed duplex, six torched cars, and 34 dead men later the Runners stand over the ‘Kinda-sorta-intact’ charred body of the criminal they were paid to recover. Well, at least it could be identified. The Johnson asked no questions (thankfully) and paid the Runners the promised sum. Sure the profit margins were a bit low because of all the ammo spent, but wow were the PCs so elated to have caused that much destruction. If the PCs had a bit more steath at the beginning of their plan they might of curb-stomped this run.

Relevant Mission Quotes HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17299319&viewfull=1#post17299319) (first half of post).

Moment of Hilarity: Super Joe’s player didn’t keep track of the amount of foam explosives he used to blow up half the duplex. I had to sit with him and calculate the damage value and… it was big. The look on Joe’s face was actually pretty funny. It was one of those ‘Oh my’ kind of looks where you realized you might have gone too far. But this was Super Joe, so he got over it pretty quickly.


Mission 16
After that last mission, let’s cool things off with a simple snatch job, shall we? Minus the simple part, because its this crew we’re talking about. Okay, for this mission we got Blackwolf, Daphne, Fox, Henry, Hugo, Ian, Super Joe, and Snowfire on deck. Big crew.


The Johnson hired the runners to raid a Nanotechnology research facility and retrieve all 20 canisters that contained project "UR-209". What is UR-209? The Johnson doesn’t know, but she’s paying the runners enough that the team doesn’t care. Off we go raiding a lab!

Some legwork reveals that the lab is hidden among several old buildings in an industrial side of Seattle. The facades of the buildings were not changed, only the inside. Thus, they didn’t look like the team was breaking into a lab. More like a bakery. Getting past security wasn’t too hard as the PCs found a way inside through the roof. The difficulty was getting Snowfire inside because he’s built like an armored troll.

Once inside the facility, they locate the lab holding the projects, but do a quick search in the lab computers for what UR-209 is first. Turns out it is a new programmed nanite creation that eats away at concrete and nothing else. Thus, entire city blocks of abandoned and useless buildings can be reduced to sand and metal framework for easy Urban Renewal.

Not a bad idea really.

The problem here is that part of the team was still high off the adrenaline from their last mission. They made a bit too much noise stealing this data and alerted some security to their location. Fox trapped these guards in a storage closet, which alerted the rest of security, which brought more guards to the lab, which got trigger-fingered Super joe to fire off a grenade.

This set off every conceivable alarm in the building. A forced ‘Run-n-Gun’ situation ensued with the team trying to transport four canisters out without losing them to damage. Snowfire was declared a ‘beast of burden’ and carried most of them. They managed a roundabout way to one of the exits, but had a half dozen armed guards set up to stop them here. Fox decides to run into the bathroom and hide there.

And fox bumps into the security mage that was hiding in ambush here. Fox is nearly killed when he eats two stunballs and a shotgun shell. Snowfire gets shot up as well because he cannot allow himself to dodge and risk the canisters getting hit. They manage to take security down, but they got chewed up to heck from the fight. Henry does a wipe on security tapes to cover their tracks and the team escapes (barely). Any slower and they’d have to deal with an arriving APC.

They’re lucky I’m a nice DM who plays ‘rule-of-cool’ often.

Relevant Mission Quotes HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17299319&viewfull=1#post17299319) (second half of post).

Moment of Hilarity: Fox getting his butt handed to him in the bathroom by the ambushing mage. That was just fail all over the place because he had glitched both his own attack spell and then an invisibility spell. And the shotgun to the chest pretty much told him to sit this fight out. :)

Cristo Meyers
2014-05-08, 11:21 AM
Moment of Hilarity: Snowfire teaching the Dunky Doll to swear. Anyone who owed a Furby would know the result of that kind of shenanigan.

Fun and laughter for the whole family?

Can I just say that "Tickle Me Dunky" is an oddly scary idea for a doll? It's right up there with "Baby Joy/Rage" from the last season of Leverage...

Amidus Drexel
2014-05-08, 11:53 AM
Hahahaha, these are brilliant! :smallbiggrin:

Forum Explorer
2014-05-09, 12:33 AM
Post to track the hilarity :smallbiggrin:

DigoDragon
2014-05-09, 07:50 AM
Fun and laughter for the whole family?

Can I just say that "Tickle Me Dunky" is an oddly scary idea for a doll? It's right up there with "Baby Joy/Rage" from the last season of Leverage...

I don't remember where I stole the idea of 'Tickle Me Dunky', but it was a running gag for a while among the PCs. And yeah, it was scary. Especially when the techies in the group had ideas to modify a few into surveillance devices for spy missions.

Brookshw
2014-05-09, 09:12 AM
Fantastic, simply fantastic. Now I want to play shadowrun again.

Well, if hacking/rigging are more streamlined I guess. Not sure how the new editions are.

Reverent-One
2014-05-09, 04:10 PM
First off, these are great stories, lots of fun.

Reading over them, I have a general Shadowrun question. How does the DocWagon's HTR team operate like it does in that one mission from a practical standpoint? Are platinum members followed by the team at all times so they are no more than seconds away at any given point?

Cristo Meyers
2014-05-09, 05:15 PM
First off, these are great stories, lots of fun.

Reading over them, I have a general Shadowrun question. How does the DocWagon's HTR team operate like it does in that one mission from a practical standpoint? Are platinum members followed by the team at all times so they are no more than seconds away at any given point?

Not really. The target in that run was the COO of DocWagon, remember. He'd probably have an HTR team on standby.

DSmaster21
2014-05-09, 05:58 PM
First off, these are great stories, lots of fun.

Reading over them, I have a general Shadowrun question. How does the DocWagon's HTR team operate like it does in that one mission from a practical standpoint? Are platinum members followed by the team at all times so they are no more than seconds away at any given point?

DocWagon High Threat Response Teams are contracted to show up within 10 minutes of being called. Most GMs have them in flying ambulances to avoid ground traffic. Once they get there they normally let the caller clear the lz but at higher levels they clear it for you. They chip their members so if you become injured and pass out they know where you are and that you have been injured. They are always armed but the platinum member gets free HT response four free resuscitations/year (There is a super-platinum that is better). Platinum members are likely going to get incredibly incredibly fast well armed and armored medics coming in hot to save their bottoms.

Basically they are BA Medics who couldn't be bothered to follow even platinum members around. They don't need to follow them around when they can arrive in a big f*ing plane.

Beacon of Chaos
2014-05-10, 05:29 PM
Fantastically entertaining stuff, Digo. I really want to play Shadowrun now.

You're gonna do a Ponyrun game soon, right? :smallwink:


(though instead of Mr. Body, I referenced Dr. Lucky from the Clue parody game 'Kill Doctor Lucky')
http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140405225526/disneycreate/images/4/4b/Post-11756-I-understood-that-reference-gi-SfRH.gif


Ian: "Well they thought wrong, Cabinet Sanchez!"
That one too. :smallsmile:


Super Joe: "Is the security going to shoot us on sight?"
Mrs. Johnson: "No, they'll offer you cookies and milk. Here's your sign."
And that. :smallbiggrin:

DigoDragon
2014-05-12, 09:02 AM
How does the DocWagon's HTR team operate like it does in that one mission from a practical standpoint? Are platinum members followed by the team at all times so they are no more than seconds away at any given point?

Not really. The target in that run was the COO of DocWagon, remember. He'd probably have an HTR team on standby.

Correct. The meeting was for DocWagon shareholders, but there were some on-site HTR members for press reasons (It looks good to show off your top quality services for the media). The PCs pretty much "rolled a 1" and had forgotten that the HTR team was even there. In hindsight they did remember that it was listed in their legwork. It won't be the last time they've had to fight off an HTR team (and funny enough those seemed to give them the most trouble).



Fantastically entertaining stuff, Digo. I really want to play Shadowrun now.
You're gonna do a Ponyrun game soon, right? :smallwink:

Maybe, because in talking with my old group to collect these notes, we re-shared quite a few good memories of this campaign. We shall see.

Also, I'm amazed someone else knows about Kill Doctor Lucky! That was a fun little game. :smallbiggrin:

Beacon of Chaos
2014-05-12, 01:38 PM
Also, I'm amazed someone else knows about Kill Doctor Lucky! That was a fun little game. :smallbiggrin:
I can't remember where I heard about it, but it definitely seemed like an interesting game. Never got to play it though. :/

DigoDragon
2014-05-12, 01:57 PM
Shadowrun Campaign Journal – The Majestic 12

Missing Mission #18 was a short session to track down organ-leggers.
Missing Mission #21 was about locating a stolen half-million nuyen car.

Mission 17
Johnsons like a runner who doesn’t ask too many questions (or ideally, any questions). Thus, when a Johnson asks the team to steal a few clones from a medical lab and the PCs’ one question is ‘For how much?’, you have a happy Johnson.

Blackwolf, Daphne, Fox, Henry, and Sophia embark to the cloning facility of DocWagon medical services. The clones are grown without brains, being nothing more than spare parts for those wealthy enough to afford backup organs. The objectives were to collect 3 specific clones and 2 lock boxes with personal data inside. The usual legwork was done to get a layout of the facility and this yielded an unusual way into the lab:

An unusually spacious sewer hatch that runs under the facility.

Now, props to the team because they figured out before it was too late that A) methane gas is an unbreathable hazard and B) a sewer big enough for you to get in means someone else got in when they built it. Sure enough, the reason for the pipe size was that Doc Wagon used it as a “chute” to dispose of unwanted body parts cheaply. A group of ghouls took residence here since they get free ‘meals’ every couple of days.

The runners managed to bargain with the ghouls, getting passage with the promise of bringing them a couple fresh bodies instead of the bland ‘leftovers’ (not like ghouls have a microwave to reheat).

The team gets into the lab and starts their raid. In the middle of the run, they find that another small team had entered (disguised as workers) to collect some unrelated data off the computer network. Unfortunately, that second team was also keen in collecting one of the two lock boxes the PCs needed. Things looked like they were going to boil into a fight, but Blackwolf had an idea—

“How much are you being paid to recover this lock box?”

That’s right, Blackwolf paid off the other team to ignore the lockbox (it was only a secondary objective to this other team). The two teams part ways, the PCs hauled a few random clones under the lab to feed the ghouls, and the runners sneak off with all their objectives. Not one alarm triggered this time!

It was a short and sweet mission. Guess you can’t shoot them all?

Snowfire and Super Joe’s players show up afterwards, but I had no mission lined up. That worked out, because the crew wanted to take some downtime and go shopping! The team upgrades their equipment, buy a few new gadgets, and pick up a couple new weapons. Snowfire especially, who secures enough parts to build himself a minigun. O_O

Relevant Mission Quotes Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17310000&viewfull=1#post17310000).

Moment of Hilarity: The downtime shopping spree was fun because the PCs actually wanted to Role-play it out for once. When Snowfire put together his minigun, everyone immediately thought “The Terminator” and were wanting to justify how to get Snowfire the chance to shoot this monster of a weapon.


Mission 19
A favorite fixer, Daniel, calls the team up because someone firebombed his shop. Blackwolf, Daphne, Fox, Henry, Hugo, Ian, Rydia, Snowfire, and Zelda answer the call for payback and head over to a safehouse where Daniel gives them the skinny on the job to get back at the ones responsible.

Daniel gives the team a few names and a warehouse to check out, his only leads behind who might have blown up his business. The PCs dig into their legwork and find that everyone on the short list has ties to TerraFirst!, an eco-terrorist organization. Now why would they want to bomb a fixer’s shack?

The team hits the warehouse and takes out a few goons. They Interrogate the survivors and learn that one of Daniel’s associates, Trotter, is next on the list. The team get Trotter’s address and takes him into protective custody before someone tries to blow Trotter’s head off. The runners meet with both fixers again at Daniel’s safehouse. Trotter figured out what those goons on the short list might be after—Daniel was researching the secret military project called ‘Q’, which was a new computer capable of a better level in hacking and decrypting data. The project had been scrapped due to several design flaws, but Daniel had found out the abandoned equipment was put in storage. Daniel recently hired a different runner team to get him the computer.

Terra First! may be after this computer so that they could crash corporations better than any physical bomb could accomplish. The Q computer is currently stashed in a factory, so the team hurries over to not only grab the computer, but under Henry’s advice they proactively destroy all research on the project. Now the suitcase-sized computer is the only one of its kind.

Why not destroy the computer too? Oh right, getting paid not to.

The team hands over the Q to Trotter and they get handsomely paid with money and a free night in that posh little safehouse Daniel had. Trotter and Daniel leave to stash the Q someplace safer. So the players raid the fridge, and chill out in the nice digs. Strangely, a fight over drinking all the booze led the PCs to find a commlink of Trotter’s which had some partly deleted files in it. Files that showed Trotter was the one who led Terra First! to bomb Daniel’s place!

We’ve been had!

The runners bail out of the house mere moments before it exploded in a firebomb. Out of the frying pan however, because Trotter’s terrorist buddies show up to kill the PCs. Zelda leads the retreat away from the mob and the team regroups back at HQ. From there, they manage to track down Daniel through his commlink signal and race over to the office building Trotter held him at. The PCs rescue Daniel, stop a bomb plot that would have devastated the building, and then have their climatic end showdown against Trotter and Trotter’s armed helicopter. Trotter dies, the Q is destroyed, and the Runners escape with the satisfaction of getting revenge.

Relevant Mission Quotes HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17322704&viewfull=1#post17322704).

Moment of Hilarity: The fighting the PCs had at the safehouse over the booze. The fact it led to the PCs discovering the trap was comedy gold. I was worried they didn’t pick up on the clues that Trotter was behind the plot. Glad they figured it out before the house exploded on them.


Mission 20
Twenty missions in and the PCs were feeling pretty confident that they can accomplish any kind of job; theft, recovery, sabotage, wet work… anything at all! Except for one thing they never counted on—babysitting.

Our sexy elf Johnson, Ms. M, had somehow convinced the team (Blackwolf, Fox, Henry, Hugo, Super Joe, and Sophia) to play undercover bodyguard/chaperone for 8 young school kids on a field trip to the zoo. The elementary school was a private one, with decent amounts of money, so why did they want to hire runners instead of some legit straight-laced security detail? Dunno, Ms. M left that part out of the mission.

Hugo, Henry, and Blackwolf walked among the children through the zoo while Fox, Super Joe, and Sophia remained behind the scenes watching for any suspicious people that eyed the children. It didn’t take long for the runners to figure out that these children were gifted in some unusual awakend way (another detail Ms. M left out) and being kids… well, they were like cats with thumbs.

The trip was educational for all the wrong subjects. The children took a shine to the runners and kept asking them questions about what kind of work they do? Do they carry weapons? Is their skull made out metal?

So Thank Zod when a group of bounty hunters came onto the scene to kidnap the children. Finally, something runners can deal with! :D They managed to subdue the would-be kidnappers and squeeze out the name and number of who hired them to grab the children. So, let’s turn these duds and that info over to the authorities and go home.

Not.

No, the runners were warming up to these kids, so when the zoo trip was done and the children went back to the school, the runners decided to have a little fieldtrip of their own. Time to board the Pain Bus. The would-be kidnappers were stashed away temporarily and the runners tracked down the man who hired them. The team found their way to a sleazy businessman who was the ex-husband of one of the kids' mother. Ah, the puzzle is coming together.

Two rounds, a dozen bullets, and about $80,000 in damages to one expensive car later ensured there would be no more attempts and kidnapping any of these kids. Okay, now we can release the kidnappers to the police. Anonymously of course.

Relevant Mission Quotes HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17337879&viewfull=1#post17337879).

Moment of Hilarity: The runners getting questioned by the children. The kids obviously watched too many action movies and saw the runners as some kind of vigilante heroes. It was fun and even the hardened members of the team softened a bit to the children. Geez, the next generation of kids are going to be weird. :3


Mission 22
The PCs began to notice that when a big mystery mission was to be had, Seattle would get drenched by a thunderstorm. What can I say? I like the ambiance and I pay them enough to not question it.

Our team this night was Blackwolf, Fox, Henry, Hugo, Super Joe, Snowfire, and Sophia. The Johnson hired them to visit a mental hospice and find out why power and landlines all went down, leaving the facility in the dark with no contact. Also, the PCs are given names and faces of the patients. Do try to save those patients, they’re ‘paying customers’.

Uh… yeah.

The runners show up and they notice that there’s an ambulance sitting out in the driveway. The headlights are dim and the engine is off. None of the vehicle’s occupants are around. That’s… not good.

The team first tries to jumpstart the ambulance engine. If they can restore power, they could access the onboard computer records to see how many occupants arrived and at what time. In trying to jumpstart the engine, Snowfire crossed the jumper-cables wrong. When that sent sparks flying in the engine, he tried to pull the cables out and ended up jumpstarting himself. Ouch. A second time managed to get the ambulance running. Okay, so three techs went inside only a couple hours ago.

The hospice warns the PCs to turn back and the PCs simply give the building the collective finger before going inside. They find a few patents wandering the hall and had to deal with their quirks (to put it mildly). Some patients don’t like being touched much (if at all) while others are a bit manic or depressive to volatile levels. How bad was it?

One tried stabbing Blackwolf with a kitchen knife. Another patient grazed Snowfire’s head with a homemade ‘zip gun’.

Okay new plan.

The runners go back to the ambulance and hack the hospice database. There they pull up the medical records on these patients and use that info to help get these patients outside safely. Okay, now things go smoother once the PCs know how to handle them (good thing the orderlies left notes. Where are the orderlies anyway?)

Several patients were rescued, but one was nearly killed when the PCs had to taser her in self-defense and the patient’s heart stopped. Whoops! After she was resuscitated and put into the ambulance for safe keeping, the PCs found a couple dead orderlies and a 3rd unconscious one in serious condition. Their injuries were magical, so the PCs began searching for a rogue mage.

The mage was found on one of the upper floors and wouldn’t you know it, he was one of the hospice doctors! The not-so-good doc apparently had taken too many pills and snapped, sacrificing patients and orderlies to some random made up god of banjos or something (I might not be off the mark). The PCs take away his license to practice (and to live) in a fight against him, a couple drug-crazed goons, and a water spirit. Once the doc was put out of commission, the PCs radio the Johnson an update and then transported the rescued patients to another ward for medical attention.

Relevant Mission Quotes HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17348097&viewfull=1#post17348097).
A few at the top of this post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17360523&viewfull=1#post17360523) also belong to the Hospice mission.

Moment of Hilarity: Well, a toss up between Snowfire getting electrocuted by the failed attempt to jumpstart the ambulance, or getting shot in the head by one of crazy patients. It wasn’t his night. XD

Beacon of Chaos
2014-05-12, 05:02 PM
It didn’t take long for the runners to figure out that these children were gifted in some unusual awakend way (another detail Ms. M left out) and being kids… well, they were like cats with thumbs.
Cat with thumbs? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6CcxJQq1x8)


The team found their way to a sleazy businessman who was the ex-husband of one of the kids.
Uh... perhaps ex-husband of one of the kids' mothers?

I hope. :smalleek:

DigoDragon
2014-05-12, 05:41 PM
I can't remember where I heard about it, but it definitely seemed like an interesting game. Never got to play it though. :/

I played once, and it's a lot harder then it sounds.



Uh... perhaps ex-husband of one of the kids' mothers?

I hope. :smalleek:

Pfffft, okay that's an embarrassing typo.

DigoDragon
2014-05-13, 01:39 PM
Shadowrun Campaign Journal – The Majestic 12 - The Final Missions

Mission 23
When I get advanced warning of a player’s absence, I’ll sometimes put the character on NPC duty with input from the player through email. When I get a lot of absent players who warn me ahead of time, I plot a weird adventure like this one.

The adventure started out In Media Res. Blackwolf, Fox, Henry, Hugo, and Super Joe find themselves in the middle of a run to steal some data out of a research lab. They can’t remember how they got here or who hired them. It was so unbelievable that Fox decided to reject reality. His disbelief got him booted from the matrix.

Yes, it turns out these runners were all hooked up to virtual reality and being tested by a mysterious company called Griffin Labs. For Three Days.

They broke out of their restraints and fought their way out of the lab wearing nothing but hospital gowns and angry looks. The “You start with nothing” kind of adventure. I like to run one in every campaign because it makes a great test for experienced PCs who might have gotten too reliant on their equipment. So cue a fight where the PCs have to use their wits. Too bad. They used fists.

It’s hilarious watching PCs flail without their shiny guns. Well it didn’t take long for the players to hijack some clothes and weapons off security and away they escape from the unmarked building into the parking lot. The team is greeted by an already-in-progress auto accident between an ambulance and a truck. No survivors, but someone left the PCs some equipment to use and keys to one of the cars in the lot.

Guardian angel?

They gear up and take the car back to their HQ. No, scratch that, they actually check into a roach motel first, to ensure they don’t have any RFID tags on them. Sure enough, they did and had them removed/disabled. Ooh, genre savvy! Cyberware was reactivated as well on the augmented PCs. They tried calling other teammates, but could only get voicemail. So the PCs decide they’ll have to retrace their steps.

The team heads to HQ and find that they were contacted by someone under the name ‘Lyle’ and they had met at a night club. They don’t have the address, but find that the vehicle they used to get there was impounded. The PCs steal their car back and find that it was parked at the Three Olive night club.

The PCs head out there to try and find Lyle again. They do, but he’s in a body bag, having been murdered by sniper less than an hour ago.

Henry manages to hack the data off Lyle’s commlink and learn that the PCs were hired to hit a place called Griffin Labs to steal some tech specs off their database. Henry also learns that the job was an ambush. The PCs were to be captured when they made the run for VR experiments. By Griffin Labs. Okay, here it gets a bit fuzzy.

The Real Griffin Labs was the unmarked building that the PCs escaped from. The building they were originally hired to hit was Griffin’s fake building designed to capture runners to use in their VR experiments. Experiments to learn how runners work to better help law enforcement companies combat them.

The PCs return to the scene of their kidnapping, but find the building on fire. D:
Good grief, how is that for bad luck?

The PCs give up and go home…

Here’s where the absentee players came into play. I had messaged them about this mission and asked them for details on how their PCs would handle rescuing the captured teammates. Snowfire, Zelda, and Daphne wanted to burn down the fake building, Galileo would plant stuff for the PCs when they escape their prison, and Rydia would take it out on Lyle. So I set the adventure up that they’d do such, but the PCs could stop them if they worked fast enough.

These peeps are slower than molasses in January. :3

Relevant Mission Quotes HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17360523&viewfull=1#post17360523).

Moment of Hilarity: Fighting their way out of the lab with no equipment. The PCs turned a lot of things into improvised weapons (trays, commlinks, chairs, a soda can at one point) and it was fun.


Mission 24
And now for something completely different. The adventure about ‘aliens’…

Blackwolf, Daphne, Fox, Ian, Hugo, Rydia, and Zelda were hired by a Johnson to be airlifted into NAN territory. Their mission was to find out what happened the West Wolves tribe. As far as the Johnson can tell, the entire tribe vanished with no trace and the NAN hasn’t investigated it just yet. The Johnson wants to get their first. The PCs pack for a hiking trip and start at the last known whereabouts of the tribe.

Our runners find scorched tents and belonging from the tribe, but no bodies. Nothing of value was taken so robbery wasn't the motive. The team followed the clues and bumped into a lot of weird things. The first was a supernatural-sized bear wearing full body armor.

It got progressively darker from there.

The team met a drug cartel that was running cocaine across NAN borders. Except what they had wasn’t cocaine, it was what appeared to be petroleum jelly. And the cartel refused to believe it was anything But cocaine. South from that incident the PCs find a bear tribe that had all become ghouls, yet the tribe didn’t think they were ghouls at all. Even though they ate people. Um… well… at least they were friendly.

The runners didn’t stay for lunch.

The final straw was an abandoned Ares military camp just outside the NAN border. Nothing was disturbed, but it seemed like the soldiers had grabbed their guns and walked off site toward the mountains. The PCs follow and they do catch a clue that the soldiers passed through here: Someone was leaving handfuls of bullets on the ground, arranged in geometric patterns. Not one to leave perfectly good ammo lying around, the PCs take it and continue into the mountains.

They find a cave where inside appeared to be a buried UFO.

All tracks end here, so the PCs try to find their way inside. After a couple hours experimenting, they figure out that the object communicates by tought and thinking of a way inside worked. Now the team climbed inside and explored the chaotic maze of halls and rooms. They didn’t realize at first that what they were thinking and saying would be incorporated in the next room they entered. It wasn’t until the PCs joked about a new car or a goat being behind one of two doors they found in one of the rooms. Behind door number one was a new 2069 convertible. Behind door number two… a goat.

Once they figure this trick out (And experimented further by asking for statues of naked girls. For research purposes) they thought about finding the control room where they could get answers. The ship let them into the core—a large domed room where all the missing people were liquefied and fed into the ship’s engine. Whoa, biofuel.

The PCs attacked the core, but the alien architecture put up a fight! After taking out the defenses and detonating some plastic explosives to destroy the ship, the PC left the wreckage to be crushed under the mountain that sat above. So they turn in some blurry photos and a few bits of weird metal to their Johnson, blamed aliens for the tribe’s disappearance and went home.

No, the Johnson didn’t believe them, but still paid them minimum agreed price.

Relevant Mission Quotes HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17381458&viewfull=1#post17381458).

Moment of Hilarity: The PCs trying to figure out how to get the convertible out of the UFO. The rooms and halls were too narrow. And the vehicle lacked fuel. They pondered taking it apart and putting it back together at home. I have such greedy little players. :3


Mission 25
I make it a point to have backgrounds on my PCs because they can make good adventure hooks. This was one such hook.

Blackwolf received an encrypted video from an old girlfriend of nearly 2 decades ago. In the video, she mentions that their daughter (who had disappeared for years) recently came up in name within a database search from one of Ares’ farms outside Seattle. Blackwolf decides to hire the team (Daphne, Fox, Galileo, Henry, Hugo, Ian, Snowfire, Sophia, Super Joe, and Zelda) himself to check out this farm and see if his long-time missing daughter was indeed out there.er last known GPS location puts her southeast of Seattle.

Yup, another full team adventure!

Once the team recovered from the shock that Blackwolf procreated, they load up in their recently rebuilt Roadmaster and head out to this farm. E-I-E-I-O…

The place was a small, but advanced Ares farm called Macro Hydroponics. Thanks to the high corn fields they were able to hide themselves on foot to get into the farm grounds. However, they nearly lose their feet when they discover that the corn field is littered with landmines. And electric fences. And armed sentry drones.

Who runs this farm, Megatron?!

After navigating the maze of explosive maize, the team splits up into three groups to check out the farm's two main warehouses and the grain silo. Inside Warehouse A, Blackwolf (along with Fox, Galileo, Daphne, and Ian) find a basement section where Ares was using this site not to farm corn, but to dissect Technomancers and study what makes them tick. They even find one technomancer in ‘cold storage’ that is still alive!

Meanwhile, Zelda, Sophia, Henry, and Hugo get attacked by Ares Enforcement Drone model 209 (ha ha) that shoots first and isn’t programed to ask questions ever. Henry tries to hack the drone while Sophia remote pilot’s the team’s Roadmaster to them for evac. Hugo and Zelda get to outrun bullets as a distraction.

This leaves Luke and Bo Duke Super Joe and Snowfire at the silo where they find that there is a sniper up on the roof. So naturally when Snowfire yells sniper, Blackwolf and his group come running out with the found technomancer right into the sniper line-of-sight. And they all get shot at.

Technomancer is dead, Team Blackwolf is scattering, and the farm’s security detail comes out to greet the PCs with… wait for it… MOAR Bullets!!

Why did they think this place was still a farm after the landmine reveal?

Sophia finally gets the Roadmaster to her (by plowing through the warehouse) just as Henry gains control of the ED-209. It’s nearly out of munitions, but the drone made a decent ablative shield for Super Joe and Snowfire to arrive. Remember a few missions ago when Snowfire acquired the parts and built himself a minigun?

Guess what’s in the Roadmaster.

Cue the blood-curdling screams when Snowfire steps out of the Roadmaster with a fully loaded minigun opening up across the field. It was like watching a weed whacker go at sticks of butter. Super Joe popped several flares into the cornfield to start a bunch of fires. Meanwhile, that earlier sniper continues to keep Blackwolf’s team pinned down. After several rounds of sniper warfare they get the sniper cornered in one of the burning cornfields.

Snowfire shows off his caber skills by chucking a large chunk of fallen tree into the field. This sets off several landmines and kills the sniper. Unless the fire got her first. Or the bullets from Blackwolf’s team.

You know, we’re just going to assume dead and be done with that.

Well, the mission was bust (so was the farm) and the team collects their gear to escape. They did get some info about this farm’s actual purpose and what Ares is doing with technomancers, so hey, some interesting info like that could sell well on the black market later.

After getting patched up, the team gets dressed and goes out for a private dinner party at a nice residence under invitation by their favorite Johnson, Ms. M (even Snowfire showed up in a black tie). They have a light meal as Mr. M discusses what will be their most important job yet… stopping a missile.

Relevant Mission Quotes HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17394779&viewfull=1#post17394779).

Moment of Hilarity: The cat-and-mouse game between the sniper and Blackwolf’s part of the team was fun. Fox and Blackwolf are both military trained, so they found my portrayal of the sniper pretty decent (I did some research) if slightly flawed just to invoke Rule of Cool at times. But hey, they sure had fun shooting everything.


Mission 26
This was it. The final mission of the main campaign. ‘Going out with a bang’ had literal implications tonight because the team’s favorite sharp-dressed Johnson, Ms. M, tasked them to break into the Arcology Commercial and Housing Enclave (ACHE) and disable a missile that has been smuggled inside. Wait, WHAT?!

Our intrepid team (Blackwolf, Daphne, Fox, Galileo, Henry, Hugo, Ian, Super Joe, and Snowfire) break the arcology’s north parking garage with their Roadmaster. An ambush was waiting for them, but it was no match against the team’s front bumper! They cut down the first wave of minions and then break off into two units to look for the missile. It’s gotta be pretty big, I mean how hard can it be to find?

Well when the BBEG has a ton of minions to throw at you and has the backing of a rogue AI, Plenty Hard.

The 320-story tall building was basically a large death trap. Not that every floor had bad guys. Just the ones the PCs had reasonable suspicions to go check. Still, there were mooks that needed to be squished.

Henry was escorted by Snowfire, Ian, and Blackwolf to one of the arcology’s physical network nodes. After taking out a couple over-glorified Roombas, Henry and Ian worked to purge the AI out of the system while Snowfire and Blackwolf defended them from attacking janitorial droids. It was pretty nasty fight that left Henry pretty battered up from a cyber-fight and blackwolf smelling pine-sol fresh, but they cornered the rogue AI into one of the drives.

Ian yanked that drive out of the server and viola—AI in a box.

Meanwhile, Super Joe, Hugo, Fox, Galileo, and Daphne were off searching for the BBEG in hopes he had the remote for the missile. This team got split up again, but Super Joe and Galileo stumbled upon the missile; and boy was it a big one! Filled with improvised explosives and radioactive materials, it was one heck of a dirty bomb. They try to disable it, but come under fire from a team of heavily armed minions.

Meanwhile, Hugo led the remaining folks to the roof where they encounter the BBEG—the former COO Michael Davenport whom the PCs thought they had assassinated! Turns out he faked his death, letting the PCs kill a stunt-double while he worked underground to accomplish the biggest ransom demand in the history of Seattle!

The BBEG’s VTOL arrives and unloads machinegun fire at the runners. They draw fire while Hugo burns all his Edge to run across the roof, jump into the VTOL, drop a live grenade, and jump out of the VTOL. He take a couple shots to the back on his way out, but the BBEG and his escape just had their night ruined on a Very personal level!

Ka-Boom!

Super Joe kills the last of the mooks by the missile, but Galileo took a few too many bullets to be running anywhere. They confirm that the missile is just an improvised dirty bomb and decide to launch it anyway.

Out in the countryside away from Seattle.

Like, where no one of importance would get hurt.

How about Davenport’s house? :D

Galileo stays behind to ensure the missile launches, though it means he’ll die in the backwash (He wanted the bragging rights), letting Super Joe go catch up with the others. The missile launches without a hitch and wouldn’t you know it, all of the BBEG’s top corrupt friends were sitting in that mansion having wine and caviar waiting for their plan to bloom and make them super-rich.

Ka-Boom!

The city authorities arrive (because a roof-top fire, a hundred calls to 911, and a missile launch are some things you just notice) so the PC bail by stealing a cargo helicopter off the roof and vacating Seattle. Unfortunately no one on the team can pilot a helicopter so landing it was… painful. Still, any crash you can walk away from?

-Is a good crash.

The PCs depart for Portland where they’ll hide for a while thanks to the large paycheck Ms. M gave them. Sure they’re leaving behind some good memories and a few toys, but hey, how many folks can say they blew up the BBEG and his cronies with a missile?

Relevant Mission Quotes HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280469-Campaign-Quotes-NO-CONTEXT-EDITION!&p=17406086&viewfull=1#post17406086).

Moment of Hilarity: Watching Super Joe and Galileo try and figure out the missile. The one time this was rocket science and neither of them were qualified. :3


Thus ends the main campaign for this group. It was the most fun I ever had playing Shadowrun.

Sith_Happens
2014-05-13, 07:33 PM
Remember a few missions ago when Snowfire acquired the parts and built himself a minigun?

Guess what’s in the Roadmaster.

Cue the blood-curdling screams when Snowfire steps out of the Roadmaster with a fully loaded minigun opening up across the field. It was like watching a weed whacker go at sticks of butter.

Perfect action movie moment. Please tell me he had a good one-liner.:smallbiggrin:


Thus ends the main campaign for this group. It was the most fun I ever had playing Shadowrun.

Just ends the "main" campaign? That means there's more right? This journal's too young to die!:smalleek:

Sartharina
2014-05-14, 12:27 AM
Thus ends the main campaign for this group. It was the most fun I ever had playing Shadowrun.

Turn it into a screenplay and make millions at the box office or as a miniseries. Now. Because this is awesome action movie stuff!

Deffers
2014-05-14, 02:25 AM
Seconded-- I mean, jeez, this is a masterclass on banter. It's sheer brilliance.

DigoDragon
2014-05-14, 08:53 AM
Perfect action movie moment. Please tell me he had a good one-liner.:smallbiggrin:

I don't remember if he did or not. It's possible since Snowfire was among the PCs that tended to have really good quips (though everyone got their share of good quotes. Except maybe Galileo, since he rarely made it to the missions).



Just ends the "main" campaign? That means there's more right? This journal's too young to die!:smalleek:

There was a shorter second campaign that I ran, but involved fewer PCs. The real difficulty of collecting info on the second campaign it is that the player who held the majority of the notes for it passed away last year. :smallfrown: I decided to stop here on a high note instead, despite that I do agree the journal could use more adventures. If I ever find myself running a new Shadowrun game, I certainly will ensure I do better at saving the notes.



Turn it into a screenplay and make millions at the box office or as a miniseries. Now. Because this is awesome action movie stuff!

Seconded-- I mean, jeez, this is a masterclass on banter. It's sheer brilliance.

A Shadowrun-like TV series would be fun. Like Leverage crossed with Blade Runner. :smallbiggrin:

Cristo Meyers
2014-05-14, 09:01 AM
A Shadowrun-like TV series would be fun. Like Leverage crossed with Blade Runner. :smallbiggrin:

For this group it would probably be more A-Team than Leverage...:smalltongue:

Beacon of Chaos
2014-05-14, 11:55 AM
Here’s where the absentee players came into play. I had messaged them about this mission and asked them for details on how their PCs would handle rescuing the captured teammates. Snowfire, Zelda, and Daphne wanted to burn down the fake building, Galileo would plant stuff for the PCs when they escape their prison, and Rydia would take it out on Lyle. So I set the adventure up that they’d do such, but the PCs could stop them if they worked fast enough.
That's pure brilliance! I'm stealing that. :smallbiggrin:


Great campaign journal, Digo! Hope to see more from you. :smallwink:

Sith_Happens
2014-05-14, 03:48 PM
That's pure brilliance! I'm stealing that. :smallbiggrin:

Oh yeah, I was going to say this too. Tricking half your group into giving the other half the runaround is just too funny.

DigoDragon
2014-05-15, 07:21 AM
For this group it would probably be more A-Team than Leverage...:smalltongue:

Ha! Yeah, that's probably more accurate. :smallbiggrin:



That's pure brilliance! I'm stealing that. :smallbiggrin:

Oh yeah, I was going to say this too. Tricking half your group into giving the other half the runaround is just too funny.

Steal away! Creative uses for PCs whose player is absent is a fun little thing to play with and I encourage other DMs/GMs to experiment.

Svata
2014-05-18, 09:27 AM
This reminds me why I need a RL group... Unfortunately, I've yet to find one, ever.

Tohron
2014-05-18, 09:49 AM
This reminds me why I need a RL group... Unfortunately, I've yet to find one, ever.

I've heard some advice that you're better off finding some of your own friends who want to try PnP then trying to find an existing group.

Svata
2014-05-18, 09:33 PM
Problem is, I moved a few months ago, and haven't met anyone who would be interested. So yeah.

DigoDragon
2014-05-19, 08:26 AM
Problem is, I moved a few months ago, and haven't met anyone who would be interested. So yeah.

In my case it was that my local friends moved off. I'm learning the nuances of gaming online so that I can return to running fun adventures like this.

Forum Explorer
2014-06-04, 01:50 AM
man if you do end up starting up a new online game I want in so badly.