[Shanfara]

Long story short:

The party is in a foreign country searching for some telekinetics who have been snatched from city A and dragged to city B.

While the players enter said foreign country, some of the characters elect to enter through customs, some choose to sneak through airport security.

Player A, awakened, while going through the regular customs interview is identified as awakened. This precipitates another more in depth interview.  During the interview Player A adds a wholly unnecessary lie and fails his con(fast talk roll). Part of failing the con roll, besides defaulting, is that the lie was completely unbelievable by anyone who knew anything about said foreign country.

 He is then deported after telling the authorities where the rest of the characters are staying while in country.

The characterss are armed with illegal weaponry, are travelling on rating 6 fake SINs, the party includes a less than sexy ork, a high magic adept and a technomancer.

Besides being under fairly close surveillance, how screwed would you say my players are currently?

I imagine the authorities are watching them closely waiting from them to do something clearly illegal. I would think the run is scrubbed and they should beat feet.



How would you play it?

[Cheesedapplications]

They already have done something illegal. They have entered the borders illegally. Not a big deal, but in association with a ganked awakened might be worth the warrant to bring them in. Especially if one is an unregistered magic user of decent power. Because now your troublesome immigration/customs problem just brought off the books mojo in. Imagine if they knew you had smuggle din an assualt cannon, AT missile, and foridden chrome. An unregistered mage = that. And god forbid they know the other guy is a technomancer. An unregistered technomancer illegally entering the border...people still have anti-technomancer riots because they fear them so much. You can imagine the gov is working the pick up plan right now.

[Shanfara]

They already have done something illegal. They have entered the borders illegally. Not a big deal, but in association with a ganked awakened might be worth the warrant to bring them in. Especially if one is an unregistered magic user of decent power. Because now your troublesome immigration/customs problem just brought off the books mojo in. Imagine if they knew you had smuggle din an assualt cannon, AT missile, and foridden chrome. An unregistered mage = that. And god forbid they know the other guy is a technomancer. An unregistered technomancer illegally entering the border...people still have anti-technomancer riots because they fear them so much. You can imagine the gov is working the pick up plan right now.

what really cheeses me as the GM (sorry for the cheese pun is that any degree of research on the player's part might have avoided this. They all could have sneaked into the country, no one needed to go through customs, but some of them did.
Heck, the lie might, stress might here, have gotten any traction if it weren't so poorly thought out/executed.

Now how do I drop the idea that they might have completely screwed the run and exposed themselves without giving it away/ruining the fun.

[Lord Scythican]

By chance what would happen to them exactly if they were...caught?

That might prove to be an interesting game. Have them break out of prison of something. Imagine if one of them had something on their record that would give them the death penalty in that country but not in their country of origin? Granted I think I would drop a heavy suggestion to the other player's to rescue him. I mean, they are already breaking the law, what's a few more laws broken compared to serving time?

[Wayfinder]

Give them a hint. Have them all roll perception. If they hit then let them know they are being watched. They notice an obvious surveillance truck, drone, undercover cop etc. They won't know for sure who is watching them but it ought to spook them. If that don't work just make the arrest from the authorities rather lax to give at least some of them an escape.

[Dead Monky]

I like the idea of sending them to jail.  But don't make it easy on them, make them earn it and make them learn a lesson.  Of course, if the game tanks too far, but you really like the group, you could always just hit reset.  Scrub everything and either act like the whole thing didn't happen or start it over.  That's what I do.

Then again, if they're screwing it up on purpose or because they're lazy or not thinking things through then by all means drop the hammer on them.  Like Cheese said, they already broke the law.  They're fugitives, make them go to prison.  And make it hard.  I don't know what country they're in, but don't make it easy on them.  There's plenty of manatech that can make the Awakened's life hell, cut the techno off from all EM, etc.  Teach them a hard lesson.  Force them to think it through and do a little research.

[Angelone]

It sucks that the offender (the mage) basically gets off scott free while the rest of the team, who didn't get caught is going to get screwed. Such is life I guess, I agree give them hints and a way out, maybe even a way to find out they had been set up and by who. Or just have the strike team break in while they are sleeping and take them alive, they then wake up receiving an offer they can't refuse and can win their freedom in that way.

[Welshman]

Do any of them have a well connected Fixer or Mob connection. Getting a call from said contact back in the states saying "What the hell did you do? Word on the street is the Feds are closing in on you just looking for the right moment. Listen you did good by me on X, so let me do you a favor you can pay me back later. I can hook you up with a smuggler a friend of a friend knows, they'll get you out of the country."

Sometimes you just hit them with the obvious. Contacts can be useful for telling them they've been noticed.

[Frankie the Fomori]

Wow, I see this as an opportunity for the Country in question. One trained deniable spec ops team.....Hmmmm what could we do with them, maybe send them on a high risk mission for free, if they succeed then they are allowed to stay inside the country as long as they make no move against government assets. if they fail, well no prob. nothing gained nothing lost!

[Lord Scythican]

Wow, I see this as an opportunity for the Country in question. One trained deniable spec ops team.....Hmmmm what could we do with them, maybe send them on a high risk mission for free, if the succeed then they are allowed to stay inside the country as long as they make no move against government assets. if they fail, well no prob. nothing gained nothing lost!

I like this idea a lot. Sort of an alternative to prison time? It would be good to give them a choice and prepare a few different scenarios. If they don't choose one, you can always use it again later for another run.

[FastJack]

I think that a lot of countries/megacorps would rather use the runners as a disposable team rather than send them off to jail. If you lock them up, you're paying for their food & comfort. Instead, send them off to god knows where to do the company business. Sorta like Snake Plisken. The question is how far do you wanna take it.

Do you want the corp to try and "own" the team? Putting cranial bombs in them and such to keep them in line? Or is it drop them in the jungle, and their only way to civilization is if they go through this outpost here and destroy it - after that, they're free.

Personally, I'd set it up so they are sent on a dangerous mission with a liaison officer from the corp to keep an eye on them so they don't escape. Gives them a chance to make buddy-buddy with the LO so that when the mission's over, the LO "looks the other way" and gives them a day's head start on their escape attempt.

[Critias]

What's the country involved, anyways?

[Angelone]

Snake Plisken is the man. He's the reason I got into this business.

[mortonstromgal]

Player A, awakened, while going through the regular customs interview is identified as awakened. This precipitates another more in depth interview.  During the interview Player A adds a wholly unnecessary lie and fails his con(fast talk roll). Part of failing the con roll, besides defaulting, is that the lie was completely unbelievable by anyone who knew anything about said foreign country.

 He is then deported after telling the authorities where the rest of the characters are staying while in country.

The characterss are armed with illegal weaponry, are travelling on rating 6 fake SINs, the party includes a less than sexy ork, a high magic adept and a technomancer.

Besides being under fairly close surveillance, how screwed would you say my players are currently?

I missed something, how do they know that the Mage is with the other characters?

[Dead Monky]

Given that he said the players didn't think things through very well, I would have to assume that they were all hanging out together chatting and generally acting like they knew each other.