[Southpaw]

So I ran Food Fight earlier today with 3 PC's: A dwarf mage, a human dronomancer, and an elf face/bioninja.

I set the whole scene in the outlying Chicago neighborhoods, because that's where the campaign is going to be.

The very first things the 2 PC's do is summon and bind their maximum allotment of spirits and sprites (they don't mention the idea until after I tell them that the mobsters won't hurt moxie for a couple of weeks, the sly dogs). It's not fun, so I rule that (if they take a week to prepare) they can summon and bind 6 Force 6 spirits/sprites, with 5 tasks each. Fine. Meanwhile, our face scopes out the McHugh's, convinces Vic that he's looking to do some freelance work, and gives him his number.

So after all the spirits sprites are there, they drive up in the rigger's armored car (I decide that, given that it's Chicago, armored cars might not be so unusual). Dronomancer has his sprites scout out the area, and they find the turrets, the metal detector, the security cameras, and the maglocks. The dwarf astral projects around the area and locates the girl. Since I was using my own map (based off floorplans for a near-future McDonald's design, about twice as large as the one given) that includes a back door, and a couple corridors, my bioninja goes in solo, through the back door. The dronomancer gets some sprites to modify the camera's video feed on the fly (nobody else can see him; this is an employees-only zone) to make it look like one of the manager's cousins is walking in instead. The ninja sidles up to the locked manager's door and (in fluent Romani; he's bilingual) claims to be his cousin. The dronomancer is helping by future-facebook stalking the manager online, feeding info about a cousin to the ninja in real time). Ninja glitches; he picked a cousin who the manager hates. The manager says he's gonna have security come rough him up. The ninja says he's here to give him some money. This is a hit with the manager, who immediately warms up and unlocks the door. The ninja immediately bursts into the room and kills him.

I segue to the other characters; ask them what they're going to do. They kind of shrug; the dwarf walks in and orders a burger.

Meanwhile, the ninja frisks him for a keycard, sneaks over to the storage room and the freezer, and opens it up. The guard is unconscious, as normal. When Moxie sees the ninja framing the entryway, bloody sword in hand, she shrieks. Hearing the shriek, the security guard moves behind the kitchen, towards the walk-in freezer, to investigate. The dwarf sees this and warns the ninja. The ninja convinces her to be quiet (such a charmer), and hides against the wall next to the door. Sure enough, the guard walks in, spots the unconscious guard, and surges towards him. The ninja steps forward and knocks him unconscious with a nick to the leg (did I mention that the ninja's monofilament sword is laced with Narcojet? MUNCHKIN). He leads the girl back out the way he came and they hunker down in the armored car.

I decide that I want there to be some shooting, so I have four heavily armed mobsters (responding to a silent alarm) barge in the door. They tell everybody to clear out ('there's an... err, gas leak'). Dwarf obliges, takes his burger, walks into the car, and tells his bound fire spirit to fuse the McHugh's doors shut and torch the place. This entire place is absolutely soaked in grease, so the fire takes right off. There were 5 mafia men in the building; all perished. The dronomancer watches and smokes a cigar.

I'd have to say this was pretty cool. Of course, I'm leaving out the hours of agonizing over their plan ('let's frame another mob family. Let's kidnap the manager for money. Let's kill nobody. Let's kill everybody!' etc). But they're not the most decisive bunch.

I'm definitely going to have to review the rules for spirits and sprites if the PC's are going to roll this way; as it stands, I'm 90% sure that they were able to get more work-per-task then RAW would allow. C'est la vie. But what I'd like to know is: what happens next? How easily would this be tracked, and linked back to them or their client? How much time and energy would the mafia, or the UCAS government, be willing to invest into the investigation?

Eager to hear your feedback and thoughts 

[RHat]

Let's see here...  They killed 6 people at a McHugh's, a company whose primary selling point is the safety of the dining experience (hence the turrets)?  I don't think they should like how that sums up.

As for ease of tracking, the first thing you'll want to look up is magical signatures - unless your players took the time to scrub them, that's a 6 hour window to get a forensic thaumaturgist there.

[Top Dog]

So I ran Food Fight earlier today with 3 PC's: A dwarf mage, a human dronomancer, and an elf face/bioninja.

I set the whole scene in the outlying Chicago neighborhoods, because that's where the campaign is going to be.

The very first things the 2 PC's do is summon and bind their maximum allotment of spirits and sprites (they don't mention the idea until after I tell them that the mobsters won't hurt moxie for a couple of weeks, the sly dogs). It's not fun, so I rule that (if they take a week to prepare) they can summon and bind 6 Force 6 spirits/sprites, with 5 tasks each. Fine. Meanwhile, our face scopes out the McHugh's, convinces Vic that he's looking to do some freelance work, and gives him his number.

Er. So I'm going ahead and saying you messed up here. I don't know the stats of your characters, but well, summoning and binding spirits isn't that easy and should be rolled for. If you don't want to roll the dice, do it with buying hits, but don't just give someone 6 force 6 spirits for free. The chance that a lucky spirits rolls high and knocks him out isn't that remote. Also, does he have 6+ charisma? You can only bind an amount of spirit equal to your charisma.
And binding a force 6 spirit costs 150 dram in reagents. That's 3000 nuyen. If the players get a week and 18000 nuyen per to prepare for a single job, then, yeah. (Granted, binding spirits keeps them around for more then that one run, but still).
Plus, this all will take him pretty much the entire week. He won't really have time to do anything else. Which were your comment came in. Never mention to the players that they don't have to do anything for a few weeks. There should almost always be a sense of urgency, especially in situations like this, even if you're not actually planning to have a hard time limit. They should never get the idea that they can just kick back for a week and do nothing but summon a bunch of spirits (even if they know that the mobsters won't do anything to hurt moxie, there might be other concerns - what if she's going to be moved? What if she tries to escape? Basically, keeping someone kidnapped for a week is a bad idea).
The technomancer doesn't pay any money, but the rest goes for him too.

So after all the spirits sprites are there, they drive up in the rigger's armored car (I decide that, given that it's Chicago, armored cars might not be so unusual). Dronomancer has his sprites scout out the area, and they find the turrets, the metal detector, the security cameras, and the maglocks. The dwarf astral projects around the area and locates the girl. Since I was using my own map (based off floorplans for a near-future McDonald's design, about twice as large as the one given) that includes a back door, and a couple corridors, my bioninja goes in solo, through the back door. The dronomancer gets some sprites to modify the camera's video feed on the fly (nobody else can see him; this is an employees-only zone) to make it look like one of the manager's cousins is walking in instead. The ninja sidles up to the locked manager's door and (in fluent Romani; he's bilingual) claims to be his cousin. The dronomancer is helping by future-facebook stalking the manager online, feeding info about a cousin to the ninja in real time). Ninja glitches; he picked a cousin who the manager hates. The manager says he's gonna have security come rough him up. The ninja says he's here to give him some money. This is a hit with the manager, who immediately warms up and unlocks the door. The ninja immediately bursts into the room and kills him.

I segue to the other characters; ask them what they're going to do. They kind of shrug; the dwarf walks in and orders a burger.

Right. Armored cars so unusual, but they're still somewhat unusual. Any witnesses will certainly remember that when they recount the story.
The whole con thing sounds weird to me. How many net hits did he get on the con/disguise roll? All you said was that it was a glitch. If it's someone the manager hates, he'd know what he looks like (so a disguise is needed) and a con id obviously needed. And once the manager thinks he's his hated cousin, a single success shouldn't immediatly switch him over to "immediatly warming up" and letting him in. Not beating him up would be a good start for a single hit. Maybe a commcode to talk later and patch things up, once he's not in the middle of something?.

(That's a problem I see with a lot of GM's. I'm sure I do it myself too. Failure should have consequences. I'm not saying there shouldn't be a way out, but rolling a single hit and immediately negating that whole earlier glitch thing and getting inside made the first roll meaningless. If failures don't have consequences, tension drops down, and tension is needed to get a sense of achievement later).

Meanwhile, the ninja frisks him for a keycard, sneaks over to the storage room and the freezer, and opens it up. The guard is unconscious, as normal. When Moxie sees the ninja framing the entryway, bloody sword in hand, she shrieks. Hearing the shriek, the security guard moves behind the kitchen, towards the walk-in freezer, to investigate. The dwarf sees this and warns the ninja. The ninja convinces her to be quiet (such a charmer), and hides against the wall next to the door. Sure enough, the guard walks in, spots the unconscious guard, and surges towards him. The ninja steps forward and knocks him unconscious with a nick to the leg (did I mention that the ninja's monofilament sword is laced with Narcojet? MUNCHKIN). He leads the girl back out the way he came and they hunker down in the armored car.

How in the hell would you coat a monofilament whip with anything? Even if the rules don't specifically disallow monofilament, you can't do it for the exact reason why it's so deadly.

I decide that I want there to be some shooting, so I have four heavily armed mobsters (responding to a silent alarm) barge in the door. They tell everybody to clear out ('there's an... err, gas leak'). Dwarf obliges, takes his burger, walks into the car, and tells his bound fire spirit to fuse the McHugh's doors shut and torch the place. This entire place is absolutely soaked in grease, so the fire takes right off. There were 5 mafia men in the building; all perished. The dronomancer watches and smokes a cigar.

Watching a fire you and your team just set with 5 people inside in cold blood sounds like a good reason for some notoriety. Probably also public awareness for the bunch - this'd count as "blowing something up in a populated area"?

Were there any civilians there when the place got torched?

I'd have to say this was pretty cool. Of course, I'm leaving out the hours of agonizing over their plan ('let's frame another mob family. Let's kidnap the manager for money. Let's kill nobody. Let's kill everybody!' etc). But they're not the most decisive bunch.

I'm definitely going to have to review the rules for spirits and sprites if the PC's are going to roll this way; as it stands, I'm 90% sure that they were able to get more work-per-task then RAW would allow. C'est la vie. But what I'd like to know is: what happens next? How easily would this be tracked, and linked back to them or their client? How much time and energy would the mafia, or the UCAS government, be willing to invest into the investigation?

Eager to hear your feedback and thoughts 

They drove an armored van to a place, came out, murdered a bunch of people and then torched the place with magic (that is, spirits). Running out with an army of spirits torching places in plain sight (I assume they did the welding at least from outside?) is something that people will notice. I'm also pretty sure that'll leave some astral signatures. They wouldn't be hard to fight by the at least three parties that want them.

[Southpaw]

Let's see here...  They killed 6 people at a McHugh's, a company whose primary selling point is the safety of the dining experience (hence the turrets)?  I don't think they should like how that sums up.

As for ease of tracking, the first thing you'll want to look up is magical signatures - unless your players took the time to scrub them, that's a 6 hour window to get a forensic thaumaturgist there.

Hmm. Alright. No astral signatures were scrubbed. Now I have to figure out just how much hellfire this means for the PC's.

Er. So I'm going ahead and saying you messed up here. I don't know the stats of your characters, but well, summoning and binding spirits isn't that easy and should be rolled for. If you don't want to roll the dice, do it with buying hits, but don't just give someone 6 force 6 spirits for free. The chance that a lucky spirits rolls high and knocks him out isn't that remote. Also, does he have 6+ charisma? You can only bind an amount of spirit equal to your charisma.
And binding a force 6 spirit costs 150 dram in reagents. That's 3000 nuyen. If the players get a week and 18000 nuyen per to prepare for a single job, then, yeah. (Granted, binding spirits keeps them around for more then that one run, but still).
Plus, this all will take him pretty much the entire week. He won't really have time to do anything else. Which were your comment came in. Never mention to the players that they don't have to do anything for a few weeks. There should almost always be a sense of urgency, especially in situations like this, even if you're not actually planning to have a hard time limit. They should never get the idea that they can just kick back for a week and do nothing but summon a bunch of spirits (even if they know that the mobsters won't do anything to hurt moxie, there might be other concerns - what if she's going to be moved? What if she tries to escape? Basically, keeping someone kidnapped for a week is a bad idea).
The technomancer doesn't pay any money, but the rest goes for him too.

Yeah - I didn't knoow about the nuyen expense to bind spirits - that's kind of a setback. You're right, that was a mistake. I did make it clear to the PC's that I (like they) was shaky on the rules, and they'll understand me retconning things that happened to them. But the reason I let them bind all those dudes in the first place is because I don't like how you have to pay karma through the nose to start with spirits from CharGen. I mean, these guys aren't exactly new to being mages or technomancers; they've been that way their whole lives. If it were me, I would have the absolute largest coterie of bound spirits and sprites on my person, at all times, regardless of whether I'm a criminal or not. Of course, that's discounting the monetary expense....
 

Right. Armored cars so unusual, but they're still somewhat unusual. Any witnesses will certainly remember that when they recount the story.
The whole con thing sounds weird to me. How many net hits did he get on the con/disguise roll? All you said was that it was a glitch. If it's someone the manager hates, he'd know what he looks like (so a disguise is needed) and a con id obviously needed. And once the manager thinks he's his hated cousin, a single success shouldn't immediatly switch him over to "immediatly warming up" and letting him in. Not beating him up would be a good start for a single hit. Maybe a commcode to talk later and patch things up, once he's not in the middle of something?.

Yeah, the armored car will be coming back to them, I've figured out

He got 4 net hits on his Con roll, and it was through a solid door, so I didn't make him disguise. And the manager hated the cousin because the cousin owed him a scandalous amount of money (I ad-libbed that one from the dronomancer's investigations) - which, sorry, I should have clarified - so I don't think a sudden change of attitude would be so implausible. Anyway, the player was roleplaying, and he doesn't usually do that, so I wanted to reward him.

How in the hell would you coat a monofilament whip with anything? Even if the rules don't specifically disallow monofilament, you can't do it for the exact reason why it's so deadly.

Monofilament-edged sword.

Watching a fire you and your team just set with 5 people inside in cold blood sounds like a good reason for some notoriety. Probably also public awareness for the bunch - this'd count as "blowing something up in a populated area"?

Were there any civilians there when the place got torched?

No civilians were in the building. The dwarf waited for his three fellow diners to go their separate ways. Still, any onlookers would have seen the building go up.

They drove an armored van to a place, came out, murdered a bunch of people and then torched the place with magic (that is, spirits). Running out with an army of spirits torching places in plain sight (I assume they did the welding at least from outside?) is something that people will notice. I'm also pretty sure that'll leave some astral signatures. They wouldn't be hard to fight by the at least three parties that want them.

Knight Errant, McHugh's (whoever they would hire - shadowrunners?), and the mafia being the three parties you had in mind?

Hmm. Looks like, if I follow through with the runners' actions, there aren't many ways this can go without the runners ending up dead. Pay off an investigator, then go to ground in the CeeZee indefinitely, maybe. You know, I don't think any of them have any idea what an astral signature might be, let alone that it can be scrubbed or traced back to a criminal; I didn't realize that either (first shadowrun session ever, woo!); if I had, I would have reminded them. I feel as though any hellish consequences would be due to my error as much as theirs; Honestly, I'm tempted to treat that run as an isolated rules-practice session and remove the warmup run from the canon; that is, after all, the way it's (afaik) intended to be run. The PC's have only ever played Pathfinder, and I don't want to punish them unduly for failing to anticipate the concept of astral signatures and tracking, nor can I fault them for keeping their high body-count Pathfinder mentality (parking an armored car in the lot was still a rookie mistake, and they should have known better). Buuut, I do want to set a precedent of their accountability for their actions and mistakes. Also, they'll learn to be subtle quick if they have to deal with the aftermath.

So if I keep it canon, it looks like my challenge here would be to find a way to expose the players to the consequences of such a...bombastic run, but not in such a way that they lose a character before the campaign proper even begins, without crippling the campaign, and without making their protection seem contrived.

[TormDK]

Mention that it's on the matrix news for instance. This would be a breaking news story IRL, more so with techknowledgy all around us in 2074.

Given that Knight Errant are looking to show the public that the contract with them is well placed, I think your runner team may just have been bumped up a notch on their to-do list if they run around like that.

It depends on what type of game you want to play obviously (Pink Mohawk vs Black coats), and finding out the mages astral signature isn't the end of the world unless they keep drawing that much attention.

Since it's a brand new game, I'd give them a point in public awareness, a couple of points in notority and give them a chance to lay low for a bit untill the situation cools Down.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Just as a personal aside, coating a weapon of any sort with a knock-out drug is in no way munchkin; for someone whose task it is to remain anonymous, it's virtually required, because you want your opponent to go down in one hit whether it's by you lopping off a limb or them succumbing to the drug.

As for the rest, well, let's take a look.

In regards to the corporate individuals - that means Knight Errant and McHugh's corporate overlords - I do presume that the technomancer had his sprites edit out the fire spirit, both in the sealing of the doors and in the starting of the fires.  That said, it actually sounds like the entire thing should be essentially covered up by the moron who evacuated everyone because of a 'gas leak'.    McHugh's isn't going to be after them; according to the records, someone requested the clientele evacuate, clearly identifying the issue, and it was apparently just in time, because hey, the place went up.  Maybe even most of the McHugh's employees got out too, I don't know, you didn't say.  If the technomancer didn't edit/have the sprite edit, then yeah, they're on the corporate hit lists, and this makes the news as a magical attack.

The Mafia - or at least the ones who were sourcing the kidnapping (not having Food Fight 4.0, well, I don't know the plotline) - might be after the team, and might be concerned enough to search for them.  While I don't quite recall how much of a summoner's signature sticks to a spirit, and by inference to the actions a spirit performs, I would tend to have that be, at worst, half the length of time.  (Sending a spirit to do your dirty work is workable for a reason - just don't let the spirit get assensed/caught.)

I will say that I would not have let them know that time wasn't an issue unless they had deliberately and extensively researched the situation, done some legwork, etc.  Giving your players time to work always has a chance of biting you in the ass pretty hard.

Presuming that the technomancer etc., unlike everyone else, I would not give them either Notoriety or Public Awareness - but that would be dependent on whether or not they brag about what they did.  If they brag, or if they didn't edit out the fire spirit, then +1 Notoriety and +1 Public Awareness (which goes up due to Notoriety too, so ...)

Me, personally?  Sounds like a good plan, if a bit ... one-sided.

[Southpaw]

Good points everybody.

Right now, here's my working plan:

We pick up next session where we left off. Perhaps an hour later, the breaking news hits. Reporter comes on in front of a burning McHugh's (firefighters would have gotten it under control by then), and talks about the situation. Foul play is immediately suspected, because the doors were all welded shut. He mentions that a thaumaturgical forensics team has arrived on site, and is working to trace the perpetrators' astral signatures. Cue collective 'OH SHI-' from the listing PC's. However, the reporter continues, the entire area has been scrubbed clean. Cue collective 'wtf...?' from the PC's. Shortly afterwards, the dwarf gets an anonymous message on his commlink: 'You owe me, chummers. Like, big time. -QP'

So that's Quantum Princess, from Chasin' the Wind. I'm going to make her into an Awakened individual. She heard over her pirated law enforcement channels that there was a massive, high-body-count Mafia killing. She gets on site well before a thaumaturgist does; she immediately suspects shadowrunners, but this doesn't match the MO of any of the runners she knows in the area. She astrally investigates, quickly concludes that new, novice runners are in town, and she goes ahead and covers up for 'em (she never liked those dirty mobsters anyway). She now has a lot of power over these new runners; not only do they 'owe her', she can turn them in to security at any time if they piss her off. She's described as a sort of maternal figure to the Chicago runner community; while leery of these runners' perceived violent tendencies, she'll be more understanding if the PC's explain that they only did it because it was the only way (that they could see) to keep the run from being linked back to their client, given that he was literally the only person motivated to hire runners to extract his daughter. So she becomes a sort of mentor/tutorial character to the PC's (spending most of that energy to drill into them the value of SUBTLETY SUBTLETY SUBTLETY). And then, after maybe a month of laying low, she decides they're ready and gives them their first run - Chasin' the Wind.

On the other side of the spectrum, here's the evidence on -hand for law enforcement: the last thing to show up on the security feed is the manager's hated cousin; after that, the line is cut. No spirits, faces, or anything of that sort was filmed. Add this to the fact that all the bystanders will report being kicked out by a group of Italians who were obviously mafia (who were on first-name terms with the employees), and add further that several bodies were found in the walk-in freezer (I'm assuming these bodies belong to enemies of the mafia who have gone missing in recent months), people will quickly conclude that this is mob-on-mob warfare, similar to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. The Mafia will realize that shadowrunners were present (hence the armored car), and won't buy that the framed cousin was responsible. Maybe he had an alibi, but  more compelling is this: there's just no way he would be there in person if he also hired shadowrunners. So they'll try to bribe KE to keep them away. But with the McHugh's corporation breathing down their necks, KE will play it by the books - mostly. With McHugh's pressuring them to make some quick arrests, KE will publicly arrest the framed cousin, loudly crowing about how they've saved the day. The mafia, on the other hand, will keep a lookout for the runner with the armored car, and the framed cousin will almost certainly hire runners to clear his name. Quantum Princess will hear that the cousin's looking to hire runners, and gives the PC's fair warning to watch their backs. And then the dwarf and the dronomancer will each gain a point of public awareness and notoriety (not the ninja; nobody saw him and lived.).

How's that sound? Feasible? Too lenient? I get that it's kind of unlikely that QP would go out on a limb to save some strangers, but it's not totally implausible either, if I characterize her correctly.

[Glyph]

The part I would change is the overbearing "I have you over a barrel/I'm going to teach you to shadowrun right" NPC.  Just have Knight Errant go for the easy arrest of the cousin, the mafia suspect more, and yes, raise their public awareness notoriety if they brag about it.

[rookie01]

Yeah that's a nice sequey to chasin'. Make em do the run for nothing to repay the favour.  I just ran the first few scenes of chain and the face critically glitched the negotiation roll... Ended up accidentally mumbling a racial slur against Latin folks. They ended up doing the run for 3000 and were happy about it.

[Southpaw]

I wonder: just how far the mafia would be willing to go to track down the real culprit? The family that got hit is strictly small time; that being said, burning down a front with six mafia guys inside is no minor slight. The dwarf has one SIN, and he ordered a burger with it. He is the last person to order at the McHugh's, and the only one to do so after the security camera feeds were cut. If one were to take the investigation into their own hands, the first step would be to look into the order history, to figure out who might have been present and get some eyewitness reports. A mafia investigator could pull the order history (assuming it survived the fire, and he had access to it) and trace that back to the dwarf. The investigator would see the fake spellcasting license attached to the guy, which would make him a prime suspect. Do you think the mafia would go to that trouble? Where would the order history have been stored; on-site (and, if so, would it have survived the fire) or tucked away in a McHugh's database somewhere? And, if so, would the mafia be willing / able to obtain the order history from McHugh's? Or do you think the mafia would leave it at 'keep your eyes peeled for an armored car filled with pyromaniacs'?

[cantrip]

The mafia could make a good antagonist for your team; though it sounds like you already have a plan of action. You could take the mafia another way; a competitive and low-mid level mafia boss takes notice of the 'elimination' of a rival mob bosses men. He extends an offer to the runners to work for him -- you know the kind of offer that you don't really refuse...

Definitely precedence in Chicago of that kind of action!

That way their public awareness /notoriety kicks in and drives the story forward.

Lot's of ways to spin it - good luck!