Third game of Shadowrun for face to face group saw us down to three players due to one having to go away to some sunny resort or something. The group therefore was down a Face character as they eyed off the Saedur Krupp facility for their companions. I had spent some time mapping out the facility and aligning some NPC’s for the night that would make for an entertaining evening of explosions and gunfire, or so I thought.
In reality, the players excelled themselves last night and it was just a pleasure to be sitting at the table and running this game. First off, after the skirmish the first thing that the weapons specialist did was to hack into one of the deceased comms link and impersonate the special ops member, informing the base that everything was OK. They encountered an “incident” and would be back for debrief soon. The player not only did very well but the guard (Kane – became very popular with the shadowrunners by the end of the night because of his glitch rolling ability) rolled a glitch and gave them the code that had changed due to the yellow alert status.
After much debate the group decided simply to go try the code and enter the big warehouse and see how far they could bluff their way through. They had slipped into the combat armor of the dead special ops – though for some it was difficult to fit in it. They went to the door, tried the code and pop, the door opened. They were greeted by Kane who became slightly suspicious during the interaction but thanks to another few good impersonation rolls and a glitch by Kane he gave away the information of where the boss was who wanted to debrief them. This may sound minor but if they had headed off to be debriefed in the wrong direction, even poor glitch rolling Kane would finally see the light.
The inner section of the warehouse contained a massive hangar filled with security guards, engineers, mechanics and a big ship/plane that was made out of an unusual alloy in a unique design. It seemed to be armed with an unusual complement of missiles also. The group made their way to the bosses office (gentleman by the name of Blakely) and were challenged by one guard (Rogers) that they managed to fool also. Entering the office Blakely told them to take their helmets off and show some respect. They all did, drawing weapons and intimidating the manager of the facility to a point of shock!
Then started the torturous process of negotiations. Blakely was a specialist in R&D and also a great negotiator. He sought to get assurance from the runners that they would guarantee his safety if he showed them where their companions were and if he revealed anything of the project. It devolved into a to and fro until he decided to give a little bit up on the project. Project Icarus, as it is named, was a massively expensive investigation into orbital rescue vehicles by Saedur Krupp. They had setbacks on the project that were costly and in reality the only way forward was to gather some hard data. Saedur Krupp had organised the destruction of the sub-orbital flight to test their design and it was a great success, apart from the two companions who seemed resistant to the “anesthetizing agent” that was incorporated in some of the technology. Of course they could not allow the passengers to report that they had been saved until the data had been formulated, reviewed and accepted so all of the passengers (100% of them had been saved) were executed whilst still knocked out on the island.
Disbelieving that the only thing here at stake was a rescue vehicle, but feeling that they had been told enough to guarantee his safety if he cooperated the runners wired him up with 5 kilo of commercial explosive with a dead man trigger that the demolitions expert held on to. Lead them to their friends and help them get off the island and they would take the bomb off. He agreed. Leaving his office Blakely told Rogers that they were off to see Doctor Lumley and Toneal to which he nodded and turned away. The minute they had exited the main building though the weapons specialist heard a comms message stating that code blue was in effect. He turned to Blakely and demanded to know what Code Blue was, Blakely bluffed and was discovered to be lying and he in the end told them that the code meant that a Saedur Krupp executive was in distress and that special protocols got put in place to end this. He swore he had nothing to do with the switch and blamed it on the runners for being inept.
In fact Blakely had been the source. Toneal is in fact his personal body guard trained as a special ops member. His comment to Rogers was a trigger for him to get Toneal and save him from the danger he was in. Unfortunately for the group, they decided to agree with Blakely. It was more likely for them that they had slipped up somewhere. There was now urgency to the mission. The aircraft piloting samurai went to the VTOL pads to acquire a vehicle while the magician, weapons specialist and Blakely headed for the lab to get their friends. Toneal, also now aware of the situation decided to make her way to the VTOL and ambush them there if she could.
By the time Toneal arrived at the VTOL the samurai was there attempting to get into it. She placed her Ares Predator to the back of his head and told him to freeze. The samurai’s wired reflexes went into overdrive though and a battle started. It was a great fight, two wired warriors trading punches and it did look like Toneal had the upper hand until the weapons specialist came around the corner of the warehouse and started taking long range shots with his Ares Predator with explosive rounds. The result was one unconscious Toneal (her combat armor turning everything into stun damage) and a grateful samurai.
Entering the lab the weapons specialist gunned down the physician who at this point had removed all cyber-wear from the groups companions and had them opened up in a scene worthy of a Hellraiser movie. They were alive though, thanks to machines. The magician managed to get them to a point where they could be moved, retrieved the cyber-wear and headed for the VTOL.
At the VTOL Blakely realized his plans had gone down the drain. Toneal was unconscious and he knew if he left with this group Saedur Krupp would find him and kill him for such a monumental failure. He attempted to sneak out a stim pak onto Toneal so she could help. They all saw him though and the magician narrowly managed to cast a physical barrier over Toneal before Blakely got to her. He turned and ran toward the hangar screaming for help. His screams were ended by a finger release on the dead man’s trigger and a large explosion (I was disappointed about how weak explosives are mind you in this game).
The runners took off, taking out the other VTOL on the island and managed to get their companions back home. The three players were ecstatic about their success! Their were “bro” hand shakes and fist bumps around the table. I have to say that it was very impressive too. Great role playing by all and some good planning pulled out a brilliant rescue mission that struck few complications. It certainly did work out perfectly for them and helped me begin to bed down some of the rules. One of the players had never heard of Shadowrun 4 weeks ago and he made the comment that this is obviously how the runs work, to which the other two laughed and said, no – actually you normally fail the first social interaction roll and have to blast your way out just trying to survive – which I could not argue with. It was great to be a part of a game that went so well! Keep rolling.