The Hijacking...

[iago]

We had a great Shadowrun game today. 

The group
This is a little background on the group, skip this if you don't care.  we had 7 players, plus the GM, which makes it the biggest game I've ever played.  There were 2 couples (boyfriend/girlfriend), a lone girl, a lone guy, myself, and the GM.  2 of the players had never played Shadowrun before but were RPG fans.  1 of them had never role played until a week before.  3 of us know the rules backwards and forwards (although I'm not so familiar with the new edition), and the rest are all moderate.  3 of them I'd never met before, 3 of them I have only met a couple times, and the GM and I have been friends since most of you were in diapers :-P.

Anyway, I'm going to post the background of the run.  The mission we were given, then what we discovered due to legwork.  Later, possibly tomorrow or during the week, I'll post the detailed plan we made, then the actual run (with the hitches). 

The Mission
There was a shipment of cars entering Seattle on a ship.  It would arrive at dock in 5 days.  When it arrives, the cars would be loaded onto trucks and delivered to storage facilities/dealerships.  We were to steal as many as possible.  We were being paid $4000/car delivered in good condition.  The shipment belonged to Renraku, which is an AAA Mega-corp (in other words, one of the 10 most powerful organizations in the world, governments and religions included). 

The Legwork
There was a total of 40 cars.  The ship they were coming on would be unfeasable to steal, which was unfortunate.  But you can't really hide a ship that's the side of several city blocks, so that's that.  They were loaded onto trucks at the dock, which is a secure compound patrolled by Renraku's security force, who aren't somebody to mess with.  Each truck carried 10, so there were 4 trucks.  The trucks went to 4 different destinations, all of them in the good area of town.  They never travelled through a ghetto, and no matter where they were they could have security on us in probably about a minute. 

Each truck has a transponder on it, constantly uplinked to the main security dispatch, and closely monitored.  Each of the cars has a transponder on it.  If the truck deviated from course even a little, security would show up in force.  If any of the cars went missing, it would instantly be known.  If we jam the transponder, they would dispatch security, aiming for the blank spot, and would be there fast enough.  Additionally, there was a drone following each of the trucks.  The drone is basically a mini surveillance blimp that provided a visual of the trucks. 

The delivery sites were also secured compounds, patrolled by Renraku's elite security.  We didn't look into them much, since it would obviously be a death trap. 

The transponders could be disabled, if we had physical access to them, but by the time we did security would already be on us. 

Our party is made up of the following:
- Rigger (driver)
- Covert Ops
- 2 Hackers (very helpful in Shadowrun)
- Face (insanely good social skills, can talk anybody into anything)
- Illusionist mage
- Manipulation mage (me!)

The only one of us that actually had combat skills is the Covert Ops.  So obviously ambushing a truck and trying to escape from the security wouldn't work.  We couldn't stop the trucks, or steal them, or jam their signals. So what do we do?

Well, we came up with a plan that used the skills of every one of our characters to successfully capture 2 of the trucks.  It went nearly flawlessly (with a couple tiny mistakes that I will explain another day).  We got the trucks to the destinations without being tracked, and Renraku never knew what hit them.  Our plan had 7 phases, plus 2 or 3 that got added because of unexpected developments.  We all have a very good time, and were extremely proud of ourselves. 

More to come!

[Towelie]

:-) Sounds like a lot of fun!

[iago]

Ok, I got my notes.  After more than an hour of debate, we decided to buy about 1000 transponders ($5000).  We spent the days before the run attaching 11 to every truck we possibly could (2 mages, both using the levitate spell).  The transponders are remotely programmable, and we used an exploited computer from another mission to send the re-program signal. 

On the day of the attacks, the plan was to scan the trucks as they left the yard to a) get the location of the transponders so they could quickly be deactivated, and b) get the signal frequencies.

We already had a map of the routes they'd be taking, so all that was left was to ambush them. 

Then, there was a catch.  Each of the transport trucks were being followed by an unmarked car.  Each of the trucks had a single driver, and the cars had a single driver.  Problem!

We had 2 vehicles.  One of them contained:
- Maniuplation mage (me!)
- Special Ops
- Hacker [driving]

The other contained:
- Illusion mage
- Hacker
- "Face"
- Rigger [driving]

First thing we did, active the 1000 transponders we planted around the city to all look like the trucks we're about to jack.  When you can't jam them, just blanket the city in useless signals, right?  That part of the plan was a stroke of genius on the part of one of our hackers.

Then, more or less simultaneously, this happened:

Truck 1:
- The manipulation mage (me!), who had summoned a water elemental, directed the elemental to use the "accident" power on the driver of one of the unmarked cars.  He lost control, ran over a light post, and kept going.  So he did it again, and he hit a school bus.  Kids may have been injured, we didn't have time to chedk.
- The manipulation mage (me!) put a physical barrier around one of the drone blimps following the truck, which had no problem stopping the drone dead
- Our hacker pulled our truck alongside theirs
- The Special Ops jumped out, pulling open the passenger-side door.  He put his sword through the truck's driver, which somehow didn't kill him.  So he shot him point-blank in the face on burst fire.  Then pushed him out the door, and took over the driving.  Unfortunately, the windshield was covered in blood!
- The maniuplation mage (me!) directed his water elemental to wash the windows.  Then we stopped sticking out like a sore thumb. 
- The special ops guy activated a jammer, which jammed all the transponders in that truck.
- At her leasure, the hacker disabled the transponders
That truck had fallen!

Truck 2
- The rigger got our truck alongside the van we were trying to jack, and waited for a red light
- When it stopped, the "face" hopped out, pulled open the trucks door.  He said "Get out, or you're dead, there's snipers in the buildings and I'll rip your head off", and proceeded to make an intimidation saving throw.  With more successes than are even possible from pretty much every other person on the planet, the driver had no problem believing him, and running screaming for his life. 
- The rigger and face hopped into the truck
- The illusionist made a massive illusion that looked to the drone and the unmarked tail that the truck was continuing on its proper path, but really it had turned off.  By the time they had noticed, it was gone
- The rigger quickly deactivated the transponders while the face drove

Now, we pretty much got away free.  As far as we knew, the control center for the trucks was going crazy.  They didn't know what the hell was going on, or how to respond.  We thought we were home free...

... then the helicopters showed up.  2 of them, with magical accompaniment, which meant we couldn't use an illusion.  This was an "oh shit" moment.    So as quickly as we could, we hit China Town, since it has lots of crap hanging over it.  We wanted to go to the local hardware store to grab tarps (why the hell didn't we think of that beforehand?), but unfortunately, there was nowhere to park.  We were doomed!

Then the manipulation mage (me!) realized that he still had a water elemental.  He gave the water elemental money to run to the store and buy tarps (which apparently isn't uncommon in Shadowrun.. I want an elemental to buy my groceries), then when he returned we got him to affix the tarps to our trucks.  At the next red light, we jumped out and tried them tight.  From then on, it looked like we were ordinary delivery trucks, at least from helicopters.

Now all we had to do was get them through the worst part of the city.  We used the Improved Invisibility spell on 2 of the trucks (thanks to the illusionist), and the water elemental's "conceal" ability on the other two (thanks to the maniuplationist (me!)).  (4 trucks = our 2 + the 2 we stole).

After that, it was uneventful. 


The lessons we learned:
- Have a contingency plan!  We did not plan for the trucks to be followed  We didn't plan for disguising the trucks, we didn't plan on being more than one person in the trucks (which, luckly, there wasn't).  We weren't prepared for a lot of bad things that could have happened, and we're lucky that we survived them. 

And that's the adventure.  Every character came in handy (except one of the hackers who just drove.. but her player left early due to work, so..).  The plan was good and solid, and went off nearly flawlessly. 

It'll probably go down in history as one of the most successful shadowruns we ever did :-)

[iago]

This is the story, from the point of view of our GM.  It also includes the little run we did first, which was stupidly easy and overplanned (oops!).  He uses our character names, as well as lingo from the game, so it's probably not as easy for a non-player to follow, but here it is:

Max Criddle->thatdarncat->Technomancer
Cierra Kraham->Seri->Illusionist
Gwen->Styric->Tech
Jack->Wolfsrevenge->Face
Katharine->captaincharisma->Hacker
Flynn T. Stone->iago->Mage
Felica->Davarin->Covert Ops

Contact: Mr. Johnson
Run Type: Scouting Mission
Mission Objectives:

- Investigate H.C.G.M.N. LLC
- Determine the focus of their new research project
- Optional: Obtain the research data files
Pay: 70000¥

So this week's run is some basic legwork, with some light B&E. Should be cake for a damn near full team. Since this was Seri and thatdarncat's first game, I thought I should ease them into the system. Also after that last near disaster, I felt a refresher course on legwork was in order for the rest of the team.

Needless to say the team made short work of the target's computer systems. The massive coordinated assault on the targets systems netted a whole lot of questions, and some minor pay data.

Hyper Compu Global Mega Net Limited Liability Corporation
Location Renton, Seattle Metroplex
Offices on the corner of 4th and 323rd in a strip mall
Company was founded last month
All the PR they have indicated that they do something to/with/in the matrix

Sharing the strip mall with the target company are the following businesses:
Dentist's Office
Temp Agency
Cafe
2¥ Store

The company has four employees on the payroll:
Neil Francios, CEO: Single, career minded, only child, previous Director of Financial Futures at Ares Macrotechnology
Peter Norton, CFO: Lives in a condo in Renton, near the office, formerly worked of Fuchi in the day trading division
Quinten Rodgers, Head Researcher: Divorced, two kids, used to work for Ares Macrotechnology (assignment within Ares unknown), likes to play Civilization
Lisa Winterhawk, Director of First Impressions: Husband Nathan Winterhawk works for Knight Errant, happily married high school sweethearts, also own a coffee maker (Don't ask me why the team wanted to know that)

Company security is handled through Knight-Errant. Onsite security is minimal; cruiser drives by every few hours. Magical security consists of watcher spirits patrolling the building. Cameras, panic buttons, and alarms are monitored remotely from a KE command center.

Recent Account Transactions:
- Startup capital from various local investment funds
- Office furniture
- Eight matrix terminals
- Coffee maker with espresso function

Janitorial and waste management services provided by Shiawase

Additionally the team got building floor plans, determined that only four of the eight terminals were connected to the matrix, from the security cams it seems that the four offline systems are compiling something. And that the office is only open from 0900-1700, though Quinten is putting in long hours.

Going over the PR material it looks like they are hyping some sort of vaporware, that they don't even know what it does, or what it is called.

Having enough of the run around the team plans to break into the office and steal the project source code. Flynn is nominated to distract the watchers, Cierra uses physical mask on Max to make him look like Quinten. Felica will be infiltrating as well to bypass any of the locks and security measures Max may not be able to deal with.

The B&E goes according to plan. Max gets the code; Felica adjusts Quinten's Civ game from Settler difficulty up to Deity +1. Felica then ensured that the security systems got turned back on and the doors were locked back up. Katharine and Max then went over the code trying to determine what it was for.

Several hours of reading code later, Katharine and Max determine that the code is modeled after a turn of the century help avatar. This one however extends past just one app or the OS. This new help avatar is more akin to a SK that adapts to any new software it encounters, spreads like a virus, and can report back to the owning corp. (Think Clippy mixed with Binky with a dash of the blaster virus and borderline AI intelligence).

Jack calls up the Johnson at this point, gives him the info, and sells him the source code for a version of the patch utility for whatever variation they come up with.

The team earns an easy 70000¥

Karma:
Max: 2
Cierra: 2
Gwen: 2
Jack: 2
Katharine: 2
Flynn: 2
Felica: 2


With the warm up run out of the way, and the team starting to learn what they can do, it's time for the main event.

Contact: Fixer
Run Type: Grand Theft Auto
Mission Objectives:
- Hijack a shipment of cars that Renraku is having delivered to Seattle
- Optional: obtain Renraku shipping manifests for Seattle for the next 2 weeks
Pay: 4000¥/Car, 100000¥ for the shipping manifests

With seven members of the team warmed up and ready for more action, I felt there wasn't really a need to hold back. The Renraku super massive cargo transport is hauling in all sorts of goods from Japan to North America is scheduled to arrive in 5 days. The team has to plan this very carefully, after all Renraku has some elite security forces, and is more of than willing to use it on the team. Failing is definitely not an option on this run.

Some basic hacking determines that this boat is hauling goods for most of North America. Most of the goods will be heading out by rail heading for other cities further inland, including 30 train cars of cars. Four trucks of cars however are going to be heading for various Renraku dealerships in the city. Each of the trucks, and train cars, is loaded with ten of the target cars.

Now the team knows that they are probably in way over their heads on this one. They spent over an hour debating amongst them selves trying to determine if this was even possible. They come to the following determinations on what the minimum security they will have to overcome is:
- Capturing the boat is right out, there is no way to hide a super massive cargo ship, never mind unload it
- Capturing the trains is right out, far to easy for Renraku to locate and recapture
- Each truck as a transponder on it that reports it's location
- Each of the cars also has a transponder on them to track inventory/location
- Jamming the trucks won't work, as Renraku will just track the moving dead spots
- Jamming all of Seattle, or even just the downtown, would make lots of people very angry with them
- There is no way they can disable all the transponders fast enough that Renraku won't be able to get a fix on their location
- Renraku Stormclouds will monitor the shipments, in addition to the other tracking methods
- Renraku really doesn't like shadowrunners, in fact the only thing they hate more is failure, and shadowrunners have a tendency to cause failure

The team then comes up with one of the most brilliant solutions I have ever seen in my years as a Shadowrun GM. Most teams I can think of have a large portion of their resources dedicated to combat, but with a team this devoid of combat ability they can't just shoot their way out of this, they have to think their way out. And I have to admit I wish the teams that I played on were half this good, 'cause damn this was amazing.

Heading down to the local Radio Hut, Gwen buys out their entire stock of security RFID tags. Meanwhile Katharine and Max hack back into HCGMN LLC head researcher Quinten's matrix enabled system, and upload a small server app. Felica, Gwen, Katharine, and Max then get busy updating the RFID tag's firmware. Flynn and Cierra take the RFID tags and find a nice vantagepoint, then begin levitating them onto various big rigs in the same locations as cars would be on a similar rig. The team splits into two groups (group 1= Gwen, Jack, and Cierra) (Group 2= Felica, Flynn, Katharine, and Max) then waits for delivery day.

With the Renraku cargo ship docked the port is working through the carefully choreographed ballet of unloading over 100000 cargo containers from this ship. The team takes up their positions a short distance from the port, Gwen and Max locate the car trailers as they are hooked up to the big rigs for transport to the various dealerships. Working fast they scan all of the transponders on the two target trucks and upload it to the server at HCGMN LLC. The team then starts tailing the big rigs. When they hit the open roads the team notices the first of the catches they have to deal with. An unmarked Renraku security car is also following each of the trucks. And as the trucks, their escorts, and the team hits the expressway then fun begins.

Flynn confirms that the tails are mundane, thus not going to cause too big of an issue. Summoning a water spirit Flynn has it cause a string of accidents to the tail for the transport his group is targeting. After a few near misses the spirit gets the job done. The poor escort hits a pothole knocking the front end out of alignment; he then swerves into a traffic light, and finally spins out and hits a school bus. At this moment the rest of the team jumps into action. Katharine and Gwen negotiate their step vans next to the big rigs. Max triggers the code on the HCGMN LLC server and all of a sudden those RFID ships begin broadcasting the same signals as the target rigs. Jack and Felica then make the daring jump onto their respective rigs and take out the drivers. Felica dispatches hers with a monosword through the torso and a SMG burst to the head, dumping the body out onto the street. Jack waving a streetline special and a borrowed AK97 carbine advises the driver of his rig that unless he wants to encounter the business end of his friends sniper rifles (imaginary friends that is) he should vacate the truck and start running, the rigger take Jacks advice. Cierra Gets into action with one awesome illusion having the truck following its route while Jack makes a right at the next intersection. Both the drone rigger and the escort fall for the illusion and follow it, Cierra even goes so far as to get it to overlay on another big rig that has been tagged with RFID chips. Flynn takes out his groups drone with a well placed physical barrier that the drone runs into at full speed, the barrier holds and it would have been raining bits of metal and the barrier bubble not contained them and rotated the field of view away from their rig.

At this point Renraku shipping HQ is on high alert, they've got 504 out of 4 trucks reporting their locations, the escorts are either not responding, reporting wrong information, or reporting on the two not targets rigs. The drones are either out of action or reporting false data. And the riggers aren't responding on their commlinks either because they are busy running for cover from the snipers, or they are dead on the expressway with their commlink having been stolen. Doing the only thing they can, shipping HQ scrambles the Red Samurai to try and find out what is happening.

The team then begins phase two, cleaning up the tags and finding cover. As Felica passes another tagged rig she activates her directional jammer and blocks the signals from the transponders on the cars, Max then takes out the truck's transponder reprogramming it to report as a different cargo, and company. Flynn gets his water spirit to purchase two large tarps and cover the trailers. Gwen is busy disabling the transponders on her group’s rig, and she manages to get them all hacked and disabled in record time. Jack and Felica are mean while getting off of the expressways and heading for narrower streets with tall buildings and overhanging signage, as well as any overpasses and underground roadways. It’s at this point that the team is alerted to the Renraku helicopters sweeping the city looking for their trucks. Additionally Renraku mages have dispelled the illusion and barrier that the team had used. With the transponders taken care of the team ensures that their rigs are reporting as logging trucks, and take the side roads out to Redmond to deliver the goods. As they start into the barrens the two groups meet up and get the trucks concealed. Flynn uses another water spirit to conceal the two bulldogs, while Cierra casts improved invisibility on the two rigs. They then get rolling with a bulldog in front and back and the rigs in the middle. Renraku breaks off the search after about four hours, and the team's exploits make the evening news, at least on some news networks.

Jack manages to negotiate 20000¥ for the rigs from the chop shops that the cars we delivered to.

The team gets paid for their twenty cars, plus the rigs, and calls it a job well done. They then make their way out of the barrens and back to their homes.

Meanwhile back at HCGMN LLC, a Renraku representative buys out the company, and then has a Renraku team go over each of the systems to find the server that the RFID chips were programmed to pull their signals from.

A short while after the purchase an Ares Firewatch team breaks Lisa Winterhawk out of Renraku secure housing, and returns her to Ares.

Jack takes this time to contact his Johnson, and let him know of Renraku's latest purchase. Mr. Johnson true to his word provides Jack with the patch to prevent infection by the new viral help agent, and begins the marketing early the next day. Renraku, not pleased by the result of their recent corporate purchase, has some of their management apologizing to their ancestors, and a few others making the long walk to Japan with stylish cement shoes.

Jack, feeling all generous or something, releases the source code to the help agent and the patch on Shadowland, effectively buying himself out of n00b13 status.

Karma:
Max: 4
Cierra: 4
Gwen: 4
Jack: 4
Katharine: 4
Flynn: 4
Felica: 4

[Newby]

Sounds awesome.

When I get some free time, I'll write up our D&D quest.

[Blaze]

Hah, they used you as a destraction in the first one.

& releasing its source, you must have a brother, flynn.

[iago]

Haha, being a distraction was my idea.  So they didn't really "use" me :-P

Actually, a lot of the planning was thanks to me.  I tried to take a more assertive role than usual in the game, and it worked out well. 

And by the way, our characters are all family, cousins or brothers.  And my character's full name is Flynn T. Stone.  Yeah, lame.  But eh? It's the best name I could think of

[Sidoh]

HAHAHAHA THEY USED YOU.

Hehe, just kidding.  That sounds like a very awesome RP session!

[Hitmen]

Wow, I didn't realize it got that involved. Scarieness.

[iago]

Wow, I didn't realize it got that involved. Scarieness.

It doesn't usually.  But we have a really good group.  Almost everybody in it is experience role players.  It's really bad when a couple comes with matching dice boxes.  I keep my dice in a pocket of my school bag..

[iago]

Update!

Remember that truck we stole where the guy got Mono-Sworded and SMG'd?  Well, that was the only link between us and the crime. 

So in today's game, we planed them in a car belonging to some other runners that we needed to get arrested.  Now, not only did they get arrested for kidnapping (today's game.... more later), they are also going to answer for our crimes.  And that was a pretty huge crime. 

[Sidoh]

Hehe, that sounds like fun.

I like those games where you get in trouble and you have to answer to the law and stuff, they're fun.

[iago]

We're generally on (or close to) the side of the law.  That's why we're actually able to call the cops.  The only problem is parts of the city that are runs by gangs/organized crime/corperations. 

We are often forced to do illegal things, like theft, but it's rare that we kill somebody. 

"I might kill somebody out of rage, or to prove a point, but that's it!"