How to fail at a subtle job. · 6:58am Aug 29th, 2016
I'm reposting this tale from the Facebook gaming group I wrote it up for. Enjoy old gaming idiocy.
So, Shadowrun, early in our time with it. It wasn't my first time in the GM's seat, but I wasn't exactly the norm yet, either, so this story begins with those words that have preceded so many tales of colossal failure in heist-style games:
It was a simple job.
Ares was performing maintenance on their corporate matrix, and it would present a rare opportunity for our employer: the compromised security during it would allow access to their most secure systems through a relatively unsecured branch office, with the only real obstacle being the necessity of direct physical access to the server in the office. All we had to do was go there physically, infiltrate the building, then jack in and set up a backdoor on the secured end for him.
And things went well enough at first.
The decker had to go in to perform the work, and the pretty-boy elf samurai, being the least socially maladjusted of the rest, would accompany him. The decker was a pile of neuroses and phobias loosely held together by stimulants and chrome, but the elf had some solid social skills for a street sam, and would do the talking. They knew the office would be expecting technicians at all hours thanks to the system maintenance, and the samurai, being pretty, had an ample selection of clothing that would pass for "Ares tech crew".
Some decently forged badges later, and they had all the makings of a quiet con job that would have them in and out with virtually no danger. And so it was. The secretary signed them in with their false identities, and the street sam, in a display of ill-conceived confidence, even waved at the cameras.
(Feel free to picture the terrible rictus grin of the Extenze guy, but if he was ginger with a goatee.)
Anyway, I decided to mess with them a bit on that point, so as they walked the halls, I made sure to point out every time a camera was on them. By the time they reached the elevators to go down to the server room, the samurai was getting paranoid. So when they approached the elevators and I pointed out the next camera, the samurai decided to pick the decker up and hold him between the camera and his face.
Yep. Subtle.
Fortunately for them, nothing comes of this behavior, because first, this was meant to be a quick and easy job, and second, I had no idea what to even do about it because seriously, what the fuck.
But moving on, they go down to the servers and the decker does his thing, only having a panic attack at something in the iconography triggering his phobias once, and then it's time to pack up and head upstairs. Now, anyone who's played 3E Shadowrun knows how long Matrix stuff takes. The samurai was sitting there guarding the decker's meatbody for a while.
And apparently, he was stewing in his paranoia the entire time.
When they get back upstairs, the samurai goes back to using the decker to conceal himself from the cameras. And on the way out through the lobby, something sets him off. I don't even know what it was. But he panics and pulls out his guns. The secretary slaps the panicbutton and the shooting starts.
Now, the samurai was in no real danger still. Despite his prettiness, he was obscenely minmaxed as only a Shadowrunner can be, and he would probably have single handedly put down anything short of a full Ares strike team. The four or so security guards and secretary stood no chance, especially when the mage and troll, seeing the commotion, ran the getaway truck through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that made up the front of the lobby and jumped out to support the team.
After reducing the lobby to rubble and the Ares employees to red paste, they all jumped into the truck and bailed out of there.
No, they did not think to track down the recordings.
Yes, they were for some reason surprised when the next game opened with tear gas canisters crashing through the windows of their shared apartment.
Oh, I just love hearing about people's rp tales going horribly, horribly wrong. There's just something so absolutely hilarious about imagining the faces of both the players who are trying to figure out what's gone wrong, and the poor hapless characters who are stuck living through it.
Ah...
I miss playing SR.