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Ares is, as a policy, notably less likely to screw over runners and more likely to pay them well. Kind of the opposite of running for Shiawase.
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Jul 25, 2019 05:18
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wiegieman posted:Ares is, as a policy, notably less likely to screw over runners and more likely to pay them well. Kind of the opposite of running for Shiawase. Perhaps relatedly, Ares is also the corp you're most likely to run into an opposing group of runners when dealing with. Nobody except Shiawase gives a gently caress if you plunder a Shiawase research facility, but Ares is giving someone a nice hefty paycheck to put you in the ground.
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Jul 25, 2019 08:16
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Part 48 - Prisoner of Blood.jpg)  Despite some Knight-Errant goons' poor life choices resulting in a minor delay in our efforts to get the MKVI out of the building, we are back on the 24th floor and the elevator to the basement should be right around the corner.  Should be and would be, if not for the fact that simple way through has been very inconveniently blocked by a cyberzombie-proof security door. And boy will this door have a lot of blood on its handles before this day is done.  And so we are forced to take the long way around which predictably goes through as hostile a neighborhood as they get, with angry bee cosplayers eager to swing their toy stingers at us at every turn.  Well, nothing to it but to start working our way through 'em. The first attendees to their own funeral are a trio of basic grunts and a rigger whose odds against the MKVI are roughly one to lol  As long as that last guy doesn't get to pull off their usual dirty tricks, obviously.  The start of the fight is uneventful, our team makes their advance with the MKVI in tow and gets some damage in while the KE squad fumbles all their shots, likely from the sudden realization that they're all about thirty to seventy-five seconds from a variety of increasingly grotesque deaths.  To even the odds at least a little bit, more KE arrive on the scene at the end of the first turn. Hey, points for not waiting until all their comrades are already dead before charging in.  The newcomers have a little more going for them than the sacrificial first line of defense, namely a bunch of bothersome spell slinging and a Captain in their usual extra hard shell.  The first body hits the floor felled by one of Dietrich's humble shurikens which the punk shaman upgraded to from throwing knives at some point. The satisfaction in taking someone out with one remains unchanged though.  Now here's some more Shadowrun Returns -brand cover weirdness for ya, you can clearly see the MKVI standing literally next to the KE rigger, and yet the Rigger is considered protected by Medium cover. Between this phantom cover and an unforunate missed axe swing, they actually manage to live until the third turn which brings with it an obvious inconvenience.  For now, Glory shows off the grenade launcher we packed with us. I mean really, if you bring a drat grenade launcher somewhere you gotta fire it off at least once or twice.  The Knight-Errant turn brings with it yet another conjured Inferno, and both the spirit and most of the enemy team focus their attacks on Blitz's drone. Max has been getting a disproportionate amount of attention in these runs which is of course only a good thing, fixing drones is a lot easier and cheaper than fixing people. Plus they complain a lot less while on fire.  Our previous complacency and cover issues come back to bite us as the Rigger actually manages to finish their dark work this time, and for a moment it seems like we're about to have a big and gruesomely tormented problem as control of the MKVI slips over to the wrong side.  It takes much of our turn to correct this little mishap, but the pesky hijacker does go down before they get to turn the cyberzombie's minigun against us. We've been on the wrong end of one of those before and it's not a good place to be. Sadly this does still cost the MKVI his turn which is a lot of missed firepower.  During the KE side of things, Dietrich takes a couple of minor hits and the Conjurer loses control of their spirit again which then predictably proceeds to burn... wait no, to strip everyone of their armor apparently. Dirty little bastard, this ain't that kind of game. Seriously though, whoever's in charge of training Knight-Errant's conjurers seems to have really been half-assing it because they sure can't seem to be able to keep spirits in check for their lives.  Not that they'll have any conjurers left at this pace, that's another one axed.  Enforcer's out too, knocked out by Dietrich's Electro Core and gunned down by Max. That's karma for you. Not the kind you improve stats with, the kind that gets you shot to death by robots.  This measly pistol hit is the most the Knight-Errant can muster on their turn, which says more or less everything about how this fight is going for them. Interestingly, the Inferno spirit also realizes it has better things to do than to get chopped in half and vanishes from the battlefield on its own. Not sure what caused it since removing the original summoner certainly hasn't gotten rid of berserkered spirits in the past, but it saves us some trouble.  It's time for the usual clean-up phase, and lightning makes for excellent detergent.  Oh and Blitz is here too, hi Blitz. In all fairness fighting with 1 AP from a distance with an SMG is not really an optimal spot for him, but that's what drones are for.  The MKVI turns the last remaining schmuck into unrecognizable paste and we are free to move on.  We don't get very far until our way is stymied by yet another security door that wasn't there before. This one feels especially silly since there's a very obvious path around it, but our tingling runner senses tell us that we should probably try and see if we can get through this thing before opting for the longer way around. Luckily unlike that last one, this one has a convenient control console installed.  A skilled decker? drat, guess we're out of luck after all.  Alright alright, just making fun. Do your thing so that we can leave this place already.   So yeah, that room we would've had to go through had we not had a decker? Bad news. Mostly for the KE squad stationed in there of course, but if there's any mission where getting to skip a fight is welcome it's this one.  But cosmic balance dictates that for one fight we can avoid thanks to decking, there's another to take its place instead. The security room which earlier saw a few murders that one could've mayhaps considered entirely unnecessary and avoidable has lured in more victims, and its door is also one only accessible with a decker. In other words, if you're forced to do that last fight you likely won't be able to get in there. Just like before we don't really need to go in there, but resisting the siren call of successful skill checks is too much to ask, so...   All that being said there are only four guards in a room with very little cover and none of them can even threaten to take control of the MKVI, so seeing as we just took on a much more sizeable group without much effort, how about we just skip to the good parts this time around?     Poor Glory constantly getting splattered by everyone's comical blood showers feels like a running comedy sketch at this point. Such are the career downsides of a claw fighter, though she probably doesn't really care one way or the other.  Since we already looted the useless gun that was stored here before, the only thing of interest in this room is a jack-in point that wasn't previously accessible. Might as well take a peek.   Four melee IC, fairly heavy-duty for a single camera node. Good area attack targets though, just gotta get a little closer.  Okay that's definitely a little excessive, we're not exactly stealing government secrets here or anything. Now it's a downright juicy area attack spot though, let's have Blitz get an Exploder ESP in there before they have the chance to spread out.  For the love of... It's a camera node! To hell with this, let's just blow them up.   Highly satisfying, that shiny Excalibur is paying off once again.  With the larger cluster decimated, the remaining stragglers are no major obstacle. And no more pop up afterwards from whichever digital clown car these things spawned from either, thankfully.  Kind of unfulfilling, going through all this trouble just to get back the same visibility we already had earlier.  And what else do we find waiting ahead of us but Knight-Errant in the main hall...  ...and yet more Knight-Errant watching the elevator.  Max's scouting trip to a nearby vent reveals even more behind that first group. That's like 30 people on this floor alone, we sure seem to have gotten their attention this time.  They've got a rigger in there, we'll have to make sure not to repeat our previous bumbling around. Mages are always bad news of course, and they even brought a sniper which is probably the first appearance of one.  There's enough combined firepower in this room that we want to make sure the MKVI with its iron constituation takes most of the heat. He's definitely not the type to go unnoticed in a room.  We have him immediately charge the Rigger and punch the living daylights out of them, hopefully eliminating that problem right off the bat. Punching is actually a pretty good alternative to the axe due to the latter's low weapon damage, like all unarmed fighters the MKVI has an ability to rip armor with his bare hands and the potential AP damage is considerable.  Glory's flashbang veers a little off course, but it still hits well enough to knock out both the Grenadier and the Mage. That's all the biggest threats out of the picture right away, not a bad start at all.  Since this is likely to be our biggest and most dangerous fight here, we have Dietrich bring out the biggest of all guns. Or rather, shields. Being universally protected by Medium Cover allows for a lot more freedom of maneuvering.  The KE accomplish little on their turn, unless you count the single saddest sniper shot in history an accomplishment. This is one of those areas where the Armor spell is incredibly good since we're in permanent combat mode, meaning it lasts indefinitely.  Okay, calling bullshit on this one. Being so good at something you can do it in your sleep is not meant to be literal.  This is how we deal with filthy cheaters around here, and no second chances either.  Might as well keep the party goin' while the barrels are still spinnin'. No magic tricks outta you today, we don't like competition.  Dietrich's Earthquake lumbers over to one of the more aggressive Enforcers to show that stone fists do the job just as well as cybernetic ones.  Blitz finishes what the mobile cliff started. Meanwhile we remove one of the two Captains from the equation with Mind Wipe.  As a hasted Glory slices open the other Enforcer in a storm of guts and gore, the aforementioned Captain comes to their senses for long enough to shout that everything's hosed. An accurate assesment of the situation by any measure.  This brings in the elevator crew we saw on the cameras earlier, returning the numerical advantage back to team KE. May these idiots be the last we'll have to grind through today.  Pretty unpleasant bunch all in all, Enforcers are just grunts as always but the other four all have the potential to cause some trouble. They're all pretty grouped up, but we're not quite close enough to hit them with anything good.  The earth spirit continues its tour of knocking people down like a secret superboss from Punch-Out.  Double kill! Not sure if its come up since the prologue mission, but miniguns are amongst the weapons which can hit adjacent targets if there's enough range between the shooter and the target. The MKVI is of course incredibly accurate from any range, and a couple of well-landed bursts takes out both the newcomers' Mage and Grenadier from full health. The increasingly disorganized Knight-Errant get their turn but accomplish little beyond chipping off small bits from Earthquake's stony surface.  Even that actually kind of works to our advantage because this time it's our turn to suffer a spirit going berserk at a 25% chance. Its largely done its job though, and it's closer to the KE than us so it's a minor inconvenience at worst. Meanwhile we reach the room's sole Heavy leyline and quickly put our empowered magical might to work with an extra spicy Flamethrower.  In the backlines Blitz has put Max back on auto-follow since the drone was getting pretty busted up and so has 2 AP to work with again. This allows him to finally land an actually successful Hijack Commlink on one of the Captains, causing them to switch sides.  A KE Conjurer (who never actually conjured anything up) is the next one to succumb to the minigun's rhythmic beat. It's one of those tracks you just can't help but dance along to, y'know?  At this point the tides of war have turned pretty decisively against the Knight-Errant, if you consider them to have ever been on their side to begin with. Of the people left standing only the Captains can even remotely be considered threatening, and one of them is literally working for us at the moment.  This Guard was unusually aggressive with their positioning, but Glory and Blitz work together to calm them down.  In what onlookers would later describe as "one of those things that's kind of grim and hosed up when you think about it but also pretty hilarious", a KE captain finally lands a legitimately good shot... right in the back of their own co-worker, killing them on the spot. You're a monster, Blitz.   Blitz then brings Max back online and uses the drone to do some clean-up. You did good work before getting all mad upset, rock-bird-spirit-thing. Let's hope no one holds any grudges here.   The MKVI chops and bops the remaining pair of Captains into a messy pile, and finally, finally we are done. One can only pray the Knight-Errant at last take the hint from this latest horrifying massacre and we'll never have to cross paths again.  The doors to freedom at last. There better not be some final surprise ambush waiting us down there after all this...  Well alright then, good. Also nice work finding such an inconspicuous escape vehicle Schmidt, thanks a lot man.   Two different clients, and two different paydays. Decisions, decisions, huh, chief? We're not talking about a piece of merchandise, Blitz. There's a living troll buried under all that chrome. Well, it's your call, boss. Can't say I envy you the decision. Yeah, time to make a decision. Now I could put this up for a vote and let the thread decide, but I suspect this is one of those times where the outcome is already incredibly obvious to everyone.  Yeah screw Schmidt and the Lodge both, even a runner's gotta draw a line somewhere.  God, that's eerie. It's almost like it's waiting for something. We could just put a bullet in him and let that be the end of it, but it's not like we're putting down an animal. There's likely no miracle happy end to be had here, but after all this time in forced servitude, it seems right to give the man an opportunity to finally take control of his own fate. Since she's the one who offered it earlier, we'll let Glory do her thing. All right. I'll see what I can do. Uh, no hard feelings over all those bullets we had you take in our stead, right?    [Blitz stares down at the MKVI's ruined skull, his eyes wide.] Well. That was... unexpected. And also disgusting. [Dietrich shudders.] What was disgusting was what the bastards here did to that troll.[Glory looks into your eyes, and you can see a flicker of warmth.] That was the right choice, Rosa. He clearly wanted to die. Didn't bother mentioning the "alive" part to begin with in fact, so that's on him. Duerr meanwhile did specify that the prototype was to be returned "undamaged", so that arrangement's off the table for good now. Too bad, guess the Lodge'll just have to deal.  Sorry things ended up going like this for you big man, scarce few people walk away a winner from these tables but the hand you got dealt was still definitely worse than most. Hope you're in a better place now, as low a bar as that is to clear.  The work of the living goes on though, our own time to rest is not here yet. Well okay, one good night's sleep definitely wouldn't hurt after a run like this.   Time to go home and bring Herr Schmidt his accursed prize. -- EXTRAS -- Since today was all fighting all the time, the only alternative bits are from the end of the run. If the Lodge objective isn't active, or if the team wasn't told that that the other client is the Lodge specifically there are some minor dialogue changes upon entering the garage but nothing particularly significant. If Eiger's around, her comments mostly boil down to killing the MKVI being the humane thing to do but the job's the job, fearless leader. There's also no extra dialogue should the MKVI be handed over alive to either Schmidt or the Lodge, so ultimately the only missed thing that's really worth showing off is the choice of unceremoniously executing the MKVI with the almighty Ares Plot Pistol instead of having Blitz or Glory (or yourself with enough Biotech) disable the control circuits: 
Kanfy fucked around with this message at 13:24 on Jul 25, 2019 |
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Jul 25, 2019 13:15
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Rumor has it that they immediately started on the MkVII. (they named it after the petname for the latest Battletech DLC: Urban Warcrimes)
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Jul 25, 2019 13:53
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The only way for this run to end. Herr Schimdt can smoke a fat one.
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Jul 25, 2019 14:10
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Fighting Trousers posted:The only way for this run to end. Herr Schimdt can smoke a fat one. The Lodge too, but that’s already been said multiple times in this thread. Only one right choice here.
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Jul 25, 2019 15:40
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I'm still not sure how good to feel about the whole thing. Even delivered with a crushed skull, we are still just giving someone else the tools need to start making their own out street kids and vagrants.
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Jul 25, 2019 17:32
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Shadowrun's not really a universe where you get clean wins, this mission (despite having at least one pod too many of KE goons) is a pretty solid example. i've done all three outcomes and none of them are really good. best you can say is at least you got to choose.
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Jul 25, 2019 18:40
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The only way to win is to gently caress over Aztech before they even begin to play
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Jul 25, 2019 18:46
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also Kanfy congratulations on writing an update through that horde of KE guys, it's alright to play but hell to write an LP post on I usually bring Eiger since it's one of the missions where the sniper rifle is truly excellent, nice to see it done differently too.
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Jul 25, 2019 18:48
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Mechanically this floor is one of the two or three sections where the lack of certain engine changes from Hong Kong really makes itself felt when replaying the game, which is kind of a pity. And yeah, that ending, good grief; it's hard to justify blowing the Lodge mulligan on any other run ethically
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Jul 25, 2019 19:46
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Yeah, this is where I was real happy I could tell the Lodge to stuff it. I really enjoyed being able to use the MKVI, though, it's a holy terror on the battlefield and even being a literal walking crime against metahumanity... would it be cool if people volunteered for it?
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Jul 25, 2019 19:50
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No.
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Jul 25, 2019 19:51
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The only people would volunteer are the ones who should never, ever be turned into killing machines.
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Jul 25, 2019 19:56
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habeasdorkus posted:Yeah, this is where I was real happy I could tell the Lodge to stuff it. I really enjoyed being able to use the MKVI, though, it's a holy terror on the battlefield and even being a literal walking crime against metahumanity... would it be cool if people volunteered for it? this is an incredible take in a thread about a cyberpunk setting lol
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Jul 25, 2019 20:02
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I mean, if there is some all consuming horror that can take control of a sentient person's brain and also capable of remotely shutting down robots, but can't do anything against a cyberzombie piloted by a brain without the active sentience, I can see a call for volunteers from the terminally ill being ethical if the alternative is extinction. But that is a very far fetched scenario. Only thing that comes close is the horror invasion that is sure to come eventually. But robots with magic-boosted RPGs would probably work just fine against those.
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Jul 25, 2019 20:05
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V. Illych L. posted:this is an incredible take in a thread about a cyberpunk setting lol It's worse because I know it's an extremely bad take and I took anyways.
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Jul 25, 2019 20:09
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habeasdorkus posted:would it be cool if people volunteered for it? And drat, that fight/those fights. is there any way to skip all that bullshit? Because I was on the cusp of reinstalling DF, then I read the update, and right now I'm all kinds of nope.
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Jul 25, 2019 20:16
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I don't think there's any amount of realistic informed consent that one could make to turn into spare parts locked in eternal agony for a death golem.
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Jul 25, 2019 20:18
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CommissarMega posted:And drat, that fight/those fights. is there any way to skip all that bullshit? Because I was on the cusp of reinstalling DF, then I read the update, and right now I'm all kinds of nope. I think you may be able to ignore the mission if you perform exemplary on every single other one and hoard enough nuyen that you don't have to take it. Otherwise, no. I can't help but love this mission despite all the combat. Honestly? It's not as bad as the run on the lab with the cockatrices. Combat goes really fast with the MK VI on your side. And unlike that run the writing in this one is much better and more satisfying, even if your only choices are about which hosed up ending you get.
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Jul 25, 2019 20:28
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Slaan posted:But that is a very far fetched scenario. Only thing that comes close is the horror invasion that is sure to come eventually. Cyberzombies pollute the mana around them. They also throw off pain and suffering the way uranium throws off radiation. They strengthen horrors just by existing, and would probably be one of the worst things to try and fight them with.
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Jul 25, 2019 21:53
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Yeah, I guess writing about  your way through a platoon of KE with the Mk VI is less fun than actually doing it. I had a ton of fun going to town with the cyberzombie, especially with Glory to pop people out of cover for it to brutalize, or Eiger taking advantage to lay down long ranged Crits down those hallways.
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Jul 25, 2019 21:59
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I dont know posted:I'm still not sure how good to feel about the whole thing. Even delivered with a crushed skull, we are still just giving someone else the tools need to start making their own out street kids and vagrants. Trying to reverse-engineer the horrible cocktail of surgery and necromancy that went into the poor bastard from his rapidly cooling corpse would be nigh impossible. Wherever his soul is off to, it has well and truly hosed off, and there's no opportunity to study the shackles that held it in place. habeasdorkus posted:Yeah, this is where I was real happy I could tell the Lodge to stuff it. I really enjoyed being able to use the MKVI, though, it's a holy terror on the battlefield and even being a literal walking crime against metahumanity... would it be cool if people volunteered for it? Minus the mystical black hole of suffering part, you can achieve similar results with 'jarheads' - a brain in a vat that can plug into things to pilot them. Transforming a hypothetical volunteer into a jarhead is entirely a matter of surgery and cybernetics rather than necromancy, and with a bit of luck, a lot of preparation, and a metric fuckton of therapy, it's possible to do so without resulting in too many psychological disorders. At that point, you can plug the brain vat into just about anything, from tanks to jets to warships to combat drones, which can easily get you something that could just about kick as much rear end as a cyberzombie. And hell, they can spend their non-working hours in VR or plugged into a humanoid drone body, so they don't end up in a Warbot In Accounting tragicomedy. While still grimdark, that package arguably falls short of the 'too horrible to volunteer for' line.
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Jul 25, 2019 22:27
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CCUs and all the essence-accounting tricks introduced in Augmentations kinda served the same purpose as Man and Machine introducing cyberzombies in 3rd: allowing people to go extra hard on chrome without running afoul of the grogs who hate the idea of Shadowrun going as hard on the chrome as GURPS Cyberpunk or 2020 and thought 2e's essence costs were just fine. The cybermancy rules read like "NPC only" stuff but they were introduced for a PC in one of the writers' home games afaik If you do get to HK at some point, the Affinity skill technically breaks some of the tabletop's metaphysical "rules" but is a huge improvement on that front. Agnosticnixie fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Jul 25, 2019 |
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Jul 25, 2019 22:43
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People are never going to stop wanting to do GiTS style braincase cyborgs, but it's a conceit of Shadowrun that it's both awful and not something in reach of players.
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Jul 25, 2019 22:45
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wiegieman posted:People are never going to stop wanting to do GiTS style braincase cyborgs, but it's a conceit of Shadowrun that it's both awful and not something in reach of players. The bigger issue with that is up to 3e your essence was constantly hosed for a ton of stuff and you didn't even have the option of things like essence holes; it was a system very much intended to gently caress with mages (5e iirc was the first edition where hitting 0 magic didn't burn you out forever) but with seemingly not that much thought about how limiting it was for mundanes.
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Jul 25, 2019 23:02
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One commonly floated idea is to allow "biocompatibility" to be bought with karma in the same way mages Initiate or technos Submerge, so mundanes can have more essence to replace with metal.
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Jul 25, 2019 23:09
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wiegieman posted:People are never going to stop wanting to do GiTS style braincase cyborgs, but it's a conceit of Shadowrun that it's both awful and not something in reach of players. It's possible with access to delta (or better) cyberware. But that poo poo is expppeeeeennnnnsssssiiiiive.
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Jul 25, 2019 23:47
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How the inevitable result of this mission outcome isn't "be painfully annihilated by whichever faction the PCs sent the corpse to" is beyond me. I can't imagine the result of this little betrayal wouldn't be "Those cheeky fuckers are dead!" from the sociopathic capitalists that gave them the mission to start with.
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Jul 26, 2019 00:04
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JustJeff88 posted:How the inevitable result of this mission outcome isn't "be painfully annihilated by whichever faction the PCs sent the corpse to" is beyond me. I can't imagine the result of this little betrayal wouldn't be "Those cheeky fuckers are dead!" from the sociopathic capitalists that gave them the mission to start with. Runners are hard to find, deliberately so, which is part of why they're used for deniable jobs. They're SINless and can't be tracked by the normal systems. They're also tougher than the vast majority of the people that would be sent after them. A team like the one in Dragonfall would absolutely butcher their way through what the corps consider their elite forces. Red Samurai, Firewatch, those guys are basically starter runner level. When you tell them to deliver you the prototype, and you get the prototype, you pay up. Especially when they just walked into a secure building, took it, and fought their way out past the people who are supposed to stop that. Megacorp executives live in fear of shadowrunners.
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Jul 26, 2019 00:38
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Yeah, the runners just dropped a couple dozen KE rapid response dudes in one go. Unless you're really into throwing bodies and money away for spite, it's better to just scratch them out of your little black book and post a negative review on Angie's List.
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Jul 26, 2019 00:41
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Agnosticnixie posted:The bigger issue with that is up to 3e your essence was constantly hosed for a ton of stuff and you didn't even have the option of things like essence holes; it was a system very much intended to gently caress with mages (5e iirc was the first edition where hitting 0 magic didn't burn you out forever) but with seemingly not that much thought about how limiting it was for mundanes. Hitting zero magic still burns you out, and for most people it's forever. I think there's some *really* specific edge cases, but for players that should 100% be the case.
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Jul 26, 2019 00:57
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Yeah. I haven't played these games, just an old pnp Shadowrunner; but the Lodge thing is a super lazy GM device. "Oh this org knows everything about what you are doing even if you change everything" is lazy storytelling. I'd call bullshit on any GM that pulled this crap. Also in the pnp this is why you get paid up front / hold in escrow / etc. We delivered the device. No mention was made of a required condition the device needed to be returned; and it's clear that this was exactly because of the nature of the device. Also it's probably like 95% still valuable dead. I'm sure there's still traces of Formula 17 or w/e in him.
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Jul 26, 2019 01:07
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habeasdorkus posted:Yeah, the runners just dropped a couple dozen KE rapid response dudes in one go. Unless you're really into throwing bodies and money away for spite, it's better to just scratch them out of your little black book and post a negative review on Angie's List. This pretty much. Unless there's a specific reason that makes them a big persistent liability to you, the best thing to do with dissapointing performance from Runners is to dock any bonuses you may have been willing to pay and never hire them again. And bitch out their fixer as an optional "gently caress You!" gesture. Actually hunting down and murdering a decently experienced Runner team takes the level of effort that doesn't get thrown about simply out of spite unless they did something like personally loving with an AA+-level CEO or board member or similar. Magni fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Jul 26, 2019 |
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Jul 26, 2019 01:30
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The usual impetus against betrayal is that it's in the interests of any given Herr Schmidt to cultivate a reputation as someone that holds up their end of the deal. This is absent when it's an anonymous voice contacting Amsel, but for them to have contacted Amsel, someone must have made an introduction, which means it's in that someone's interest to have only done so if this Schmidt was on the level. This is one of the ways Fixers earn their cut - they're part of a nexus of relationships that encourages everyone involved to stick to their word. On top of that, there is nothing in the world more paranoid than a Shadowrunner getting their payday from an untrusted employer. And if Herr Schmidt had the muscle on hand to go toe-to-toe against Rosa and her team, they wouldn't have needed to hire them in the first place.
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Jul 26, 2019 02:09
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GimmickMan posted:This was the first run I did of the three that Amsel gets you and, man, same. It's the coolest mission of the three but holy moly is it long. Could someone briefly spoil me on which mission it is? E: nm, confused sebmojo fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Jul 26, 2019 |
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Jul 26, 2019 04:15
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habeasdorkus posted:Yeah, the runners just dropped a couple dozen KE rapid response dudes in one go. Unless you're really into throwing bodies and money away for spite, it's better to just scratch them out of your little black book and post a negative review on Angie's List. And in the event that they did try one of the first things to happen would be Paul spreading the word of why they decided to burn that contract. Most high level fixers in an area know each other at least well enough to pass around news and there’s quite a lot of people who would cheerfully finance burning anything to do with cyberzombies to the ground just in general principle. Lofwyr alone would be putting up enough bounties to make sure everyone involved eats a bullet just to start with.
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Jul 26, 2019 04:32
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JustJeff88 posted:How the inevitable result of this mission outcome isn't "be painfully annihilated by whichever faction the PCs sent the corpse to" is beyond me. I can't imagine the result of this little betrayal wouldn't be "Those cheeky fuckers are dead!" from the sociopathic capitalists that gave them the mission to start with. Everyone else has mentioned the reasons why, but a lot of emphasis should be put on the fact that Rosa's team did the job they were hired to do. They carved through a high security facility, retrieved the prototype, and delivered it mostly intact to the client. Nothing was mentioned about "alive", and there's still going to be some value from the corpse even without being able to make cyberzombies. If you hire people, and they do the job you asked, you're really going to have trouble justifying the assassination team expenses.
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Jul 26, 2019 05:07
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Stroth posted:And in the event that they did try one of the first things to happen would be Paul spreading the word of why they decided to burn that contract. Most high level fixers in an area know each other at least well enough to pass around news and there’s quite a lot of people who would cheerfully finance burning anything to do with cyberzombies to the ground just in general principle. Lofwyr alone would be putting up enough bounties to make sure everyone involved eats a bullet just to start with. Yeah, they always say "never deal with a dragon", but they never say that you shouldn't use anonymous tips to aim a dragon at the people aiming to kill you. And when it comes to Crimes Against Nature, that's one of the things most dragons will generally drop their prior engagements to explicitly stamp out. The very existence of a cyberzombie is the sort of thing you could never glass a runner team for, because then it would become instantly and blatantly obvious to anyone in range of a media source that you were complicit with a cyberzombie existing.
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Jul 26, 2019 08:12
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chiasaur11 posted:If you hire people, and they do the job you asked, you're really going to have trouble justifying the assassination team expenses. Right. Just because your budget is black doesn't change that it still has line items and can get audited by people with the right clearances. If you're way over on the "clean up loose ends" line item because you've dropped a ton on trying to wax a cheeky runner team that did what you told them to, you're gonna get called on the carpet for misuse of corporate funds. And let me tell you, megacorps are ruthless when it comes to enforcing their fiduciaries duties to themselves.
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Jul 26, 2019 13:17
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