Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: ST (haydnshaw) on <03-31-14/0722:21>
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Hey guys.
For a couple of my runs, the runners need to infiltrate or otherwise kick down the front door of military installations. For one of them, they need to destroy a weapon.
I need to plan the layout of the base, but I don't know what rooms need to implemented.
Some context:
The weapon the runners needs to destroy is magic-based.
The base is surrounded by a forest and in a remote area (think about the Empire Bunker on Endor from Star Wars).
The base uses mag-lock gates with key cards.
The base has 10 personnel watching the exterior, and 15-20 watching the interior.
The base is making good progress on its project, so megacorp priority for it has been upped a notch.
The base has cameras on the entrances, as well as in key rooms and chokepoints.
Some rooms I've come up with so far:
Mess Hall and Kitchen
Soldier Barracks
Helipad
Weapon Containment Chamber.
What else do I need and is there anything in the internet that makes for good source material (as in reference images)
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FYI, doing Google searches for "military base layouts" might get you some unwanted attention. With that said, there are several independent structures that are common at military bases (some of which you've got covered):
- Barracks - I would probably make a barracks for every 100 soldiers on the base
- Mess Halls - D Fac is another word for a mess. D-Fac is short for Dining Facility and is quickly becoming a common verbal acronym
- Offices - lots of offices, really. Unless the base is a training facility, you've got to have an office for nearly every officer and civilian contractor
- Gymnasiums - I worked on Fort Carson, one of the bigger Army bases in the country, and they have three gymnasiums
- Outdoor space - Lots of parks, trails, etc. for jogging, biking, and various other exercises
- Armory - there would be a few armories, scattered around in non-obvious locations (no signs saying "Armory" unless you're on a training base)
- Motor pool - this is where all the vehicles are stored and worked on. There would be a few, each specializing in a specific type of vehicle (tank, HMHVV, aircraft, etc.)
- Downrange - every base has a training area for their rifles, pistols, operations, etc. These areas could include small mock-up towns as well
- Temporary buildings - every base I've ever been on is constantly under construction. As a result, you get a lot of temporary buildings all over the place
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check out drive through RPG. If you search, they'll sell you a nice military base diagram for whatever type you want. Heck, if you want there is even papercraft military bases out there!
That or just google it. Honestly, if you're the kind of terrorist who uses google for their plots, you're pretty bad at this....
And, if you're the kind of government who has Area 51 plans up on a google image search, you're even worse at this....
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yeah, I did a search for "military instillation maps images" and it turned out a decent number of results
https://www.google.com/search?q=instillation+maps+images&espv=210&es_sm=122&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=7IM5U62UJcHEqQHDv4C4CQ&ved=0CCgQsAQ&biw=1422&bih=1041&dpr=0.9#q=military+instillation+maps+images&tbm=isch&imgdii=_
Another thing you can do is look up actual bases in google maps, for overhead views, and then you can label individual buildings whatever you want to suit the purposes of your game.
As for an actual, detailed room by room map, personal experience has me advising against it. It'll be much quicker for you to narrate it, rather than play out a room by room search
"Okay, you go through the next 10 rooms, and they are not what you are looking for, now you find yourself at the base gymnasium" or whatnot.
Maybe it's just me, and the fact that most of my gamers are formerly experienced only in D&D, but when a map is on the table, the map is all they start to focus on, and they lose sight of the need for speed that Shadowrun imposes.
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Something to consider when working up the details of these: Military bases are generally designed to keep the unwanted out. Secure research facilities often are designed to both keep the unwanted out, while also keeping what's being worked on in. (Sometimes for protection of tee IP; sometimes because what they're working on is dangerous and requires control, such as biological agents.) The difference is subtle but very real, and leads to things like negative pressure rooms, increased internal surveillance, bag checks on the way out, etc. in the lab scenario. These may or may not matter depending on what the runners plan, but can be interesting twists to drop on them.
Also, don't forget that even military bases have things like rec rooms for the troops, classrooms, administrative offices, and lots and lots of storage. Depending on the military involved, weapons might be locked up most of the time, or perhaps just the heavy stuff. Live ammo supplies of those carrying weapons might be limited.
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If it's magic based, they're going to need mages and wards, too.
I'd throw in a few upgraded living quarters for the mages and/or top scientists, especially if the corp is pleased with their project.
Remember to account for "shifts".
Frex, if the place needs ten active guards at any time in a remote location, they're going to have to actually have between twenty and thirty on-site (others training/sleeping) unless the guards are shipping in and out every day (which will make security less tight). When the drek really hits the fan, they'll be able to join the fray if given a few moments to arm themselves.
Edit - Also, a medical office to care for wounded. When you play with dangerous stuff...
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If it's going to be a research project they have to search for, then you also need some extra rooms/buildings like laboratories, offices for scientists, sleeping and recreation rooms for scientists (they don't sleep in barracks, especially the top scientists), an extra server room for the project files (behind wifi inhibiting paint, completely disconnected from the matrix), secure storage facilities for the project outputs, and so on.
Also, for shifts, you will have to count that a normal shift is 8 hours, so you'll need three times as much people as you want on one shift. Sometimes the graveyard shift is less manned than the day shifts, but you need a couple of people extra in case people fall ill or have to leave for other reasons (like training).
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You mean shifts were 8 hours before the megacorp. :) I could see corps extending workdays to pre-labor movement standards.
Maybe a 12 hr day? 6 hours outside guard, then 6 hours inside guard? then down (discretionary) 6, rest 6, and repeat? That way you only really need 4 shifts, each a step off from each other.
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You still want your guards to be somewhat awake, otherwise you can just as well not put any. You can do 12 to 18 hour days for a couple of days, but after that your productivity will go down (been there, done that).
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You still want your guards to be somewhat awake, otherwise you can just as well not put any. You can do 12 to 18 hour days for a couple of days, but after that your productivity will go down (been there, done that).
I agree, but I think it'd be a good weakness for your team to exploit if they find that a particular guard has been running lots of double shifts, or using Long Haul or Cram to keep himself awake on the job. If the players can find out about that guard, then they might be able to use it to their advantage in a lot of ways, not the least of which is blackmail or overdosing.
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You still want your guards to be somewhat awake, otherwise you can just as well not put any. You can do 12 to 18 hour days for a couple of days, but after that your productivity will go down (been there, done that).
Er, between discretionary time and rest period they have twelve hours that could possibly be spent sleeping. I actually thought that was rather generous...
In any case, a little research shows systems that are worse for sleep times: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watch_system
Also, That is part of the point of having them rotate inside after six. Freshens it up for those on duty but also means you always have the rested eyes on the exterior where they are needed and the not as rested eyes inside where the watch commander can keep a closer eye.
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Yeah, but you're talking a military facility - not (like you're seeing in most of those watch schedules) a ship at sea, or some other location where there's always gotta be X, Y, and Z at hand on the P, D, and Q. If you're talking actual watches, I'd posit/recommend four shifts of six hour watches, with each shift doing an additional 2-4 hours worth of some sort of activity or maintenance either (consistently) before or after the shift, making them available if the feces meets the rotating turbines. As it is, though, you've got only 30 people for your watch setup; this isn't a military installation, it's a dinky facility somewhere. It might be a black facility, but it's frickin' podunk, three buildings max, with at best 15 guys walking beats and supervising the gates for 12 hours a day.
In any case. In a multi-building facility, you aren't going to be able to have an 'inside patrol' and an 'outside patrol'; you'll have guys moving through each building, keying into 'watch points' either with a designated route, at designated times, or - if they're smart - going erratically from one to any one of several others within range. You might have guys doing an hour on the cameras, then rotating out to do some walking, thereby always keeping someone fresh with an eye on the screens.
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Agreed on most points, however, I was trying to follow the OP's guidelines.
The OP stipulated 10 guards outside, 15-20 inside so I purposely tried to keep it to 30 guards total (I failed (40 required), but tried to keep it to similar size) with a clear division of exterior and interior.
Also, I don't believe OP has multiple buildings as his example is an underground bunker with an aboveground entrance and he refers to rooms, not buildings that he's come up with.
edited for brevity:
Some context:
The base is surrounded by a forest and in a remote area (think about the Empire Bunker on Endor from Star Wars).
The base has 10 personnel watching the exterior, and 15-20 watching the interior.
Some rooms I've come up with so far:
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"Why don't you gentleman have a Pepsi?"
http://youtu.be/gK5tWGKHdA4
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Agreed on most points, however, I was trying to follow the OP's guidelines.
The OP stipulated 10 guards outside, 15-20 inside so I purposely tried to keep it to 30 guards total (I failed (40 required), but tried to keep it to similar size) with a clear division of exterior and interior.
Some context:
The base is surrounded by a forest and in a remote area (think about the Empire Bunker on Endor from Star Wars).
The base has 10 personnel watching the exterior, and 15-20 watching the interior.
Some rooms I've come up with so far:
Ah. Missed the 'Endor Bunker' reference. In which case yeah, 15-20 on the inside, but I sure wouldn't have them watching the interior - unless the experiments on the inside are more dangerous than anything outside. Well, whatever.
Honestly, if they're going into this sort of thing without a complete layout and knowing precisely where the target is, they might as well save time and just shoot themselves in the head. Or better, shoot the Johnson in the head. Otherwise, there'd better be pretty serious compensation for all the legwork and pre-intrusion investigation the PCs are going to have to do.
At least, that's my view.
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Hello again
I just want to say, despite no additional input from me since I started this thread over a week ago, you guys have been amazing in providing feedback for the uneducated in military installations and resource management in regards to personnel. Normally I'm good for researching stuff I don't know a lot about, but I'm really in the dark about this one and considering the context (researching how to attack a military installation is a bit dodgy, and the recent fort hood shooting doesn't add much to my confidence on that), a lot of you sharing your experiences with me and your perceived knowledge has really enlightened me on the subject.
Giving it some additional thought, I only felt it would be appropriate to increase the size of the facility and the amount of personnel I can have posted to patrol routes at any given time, and I think for my scenario in particular (It's a bit of a homebrew thing I will admit, but I'll make blog posts on the scenarios as I go through them, like some of the stuff I designed, the resources I used from people like Namikaze, and citations of knowledge I have chosen to use in my scenarios), I will need to cover some unconventional ground as well. Much of this is stuff I will have to research myself from here on in.
If you're still interested in helping though, I will be asking more questions about this kind of stuff in the future, perhaps just in a different context (for corporate buildings and headquarters).
If you wish to further contribute to this thread, I would ask your opinion on the same question if it was one big building, with a few smaller structures in the area, and if the base now had at least 200 soldiers on site at any given time. HTR teams would be able to make it there, but would have to do so via helicopters given the lack of roads and runway, and would probably count as A level security if anything.
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I just want to say, despite no additional input from me since I started this thread over a week ago, you guys have been amazing in providing feedback for the uneducated in military installations and resource management in regards to personnel. Normally I'm good for researching stuff I don't know a lot about, but I'm really in the dark about this one and considering the context (researching how to attack a military installation is a bit dodgy, and the recent fort hood shooting doesn't add much to my confidence on that), a lot of you sharing your experiences with me and your perceived knowledge has really enlightened me on the subject.
Happy to help, Chummer! And I'd be happy to try my hand at security planning for other facilities you have in mind.
If you wish to further contribute to this thread, I would ask your opinion on the same question if it was one big building, with a few smaller structures in the area, and if the base now had at least 200 soldiers on site at any given time. HTR teams would be able to make it there, but would have to do so via helicopters given the lack of roads and runway, and would probably count as A level security if anything.
This changes things a bit. A large building would likely need a spider or two, depending on the size and number of devices the building houses. The outer buildings might be staffed sufficiently with as few as 10-30 personnel each. Depending on the number of buildings you have in mind, this would leave the main building more sparsely protected, despite having more personnel on-site at any given time. This isn't necessarily a bad thing though - it just means that the best patrols are going to have 2-3 soldiers instead of 4-5. Alternatively, your guards in the main building could alternate floors for patrol and such. Like, starting with an odd-numbered hour, the odd-numbered floors get patrolled. Even-numbered hours have guards on the even-numbered floors.
Can you be more specific about the main building and the smaller buildings? Sizes are important, as are the number of structures and what purpose(s) they serve.
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Can you be more specific about the main building and the smaller buildings? Sizes are important, as are the number of structures and what purpose(s) they serve.
I would say that I haven't given it enough thought at this stage; I've had to re-think a lot of things with regards to planning, and haven't had much time to write my scenarios properly as of late, on top of not getting enough sleep, I've been working long hours and attending different roleplay games so sunday is the only day I can really work on it.
Tomorrow, I've got a bit more free time in the week than usual, and will most-likely be able to draw some rough designs of what I want. So I will post those up here as soon as I'm able. In addition to your feedback here Namikaze, I have found your NPC cards useful and may well be using them in the future for my scenario.
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Tomorrow, I've got a bit more free time in the week than usual, and will most-likely be able to draw some rough designs of what I want. So I will post those up here as soon as I'm able. In addition to your feedback here Namikaze, I have found your NPC cards useful and may well be using them in the future for my scenario.
Cool! I whipped those up quick, so they might be a little rough around the edges. If you've got any ideas, I'll see if I can tweak things.
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So I know I said I would work on the aforementioned military research base, but after some inspiration I decided to put together something else that needs to be made.
Some context:
The runners are part of a PMC with lifelong contracts for a Minor Corporation (for the purpose of simplicity, we will refer to the runners as Underdog, the Minor corporation as Damsel, and the Megacorp Big Bad as Dragon).
Underdog is asked to work for Damsel and is invited to Damsel's humble abode. Upon arriving, Underdog is checked through the numerous security gates as they are led over the bridge, supporting passage across a moat (as the headquarters are situated on an artificial lake) on the other side, at the security office, they are buzzed through blast door B where they are lead into the civilian access area (a graveled yard with parking areas for civllian vehicles, a small building, areas dedicated to offloading supplies, and enough space between an offloading vehicle and a parked one for an MBT to cruise on through)., As they are taken through, Underdog sees civilian contractors and Damsel's security forces offloading food from a truck into the side door of a building, and there are guys going in and out of a corridor constantly, in addition, they look up and see more of Damsel's guard patrolling on the gantries above, armed with assault rifles, and further up still, sniper rifles. They approach yet another security gate and are buzzed through, and as they vacate their vehicles, they see the base's motor pool with some light tanks, apc's, and maybe a main-battle tank repurposed as a missile tank. Damsel's guard then escorts them from there up to the floor above where they meet with their Johnson.
For the whole journey, Underdog really feels like there is a good amount of soldiers on-site with enough resources to tackle any minor military invasions.
They ask about aerial assaults, and are made aware of the numerous SAM sites and Rocket-Artillery Countermeasures on the roof.
They ask about foot soldiers getting past the security gates as they cross the moat, but are then told the bridge offering passage to the headquarters would swiftly retract and lock-up in event of a siege, and any of Dragon's soldiers unlucky to make it across before that happens would be chewed up by the HQ's droneturret system.
They ask about Dragon's troops crossing over the lake to sides other than where the bridge is based (say the bridge is south, the attackers would target west, north, and east), and are told that Dragon's troops would be chewed up by the same droneturret system, put into the other walls to combat this contingency.
At this point Underdog runs out of questions and gets the feeling that the HQ is safe.
At the end of three or four runs, Underdog manages to piss off Dragon. Underdog finds out that Dragon's army is launching an assault on Damsel's HQ and that Underdog is powerless to stop it or warn ahead. As a result, Damsel's forces get slaughtered and holes are blown into the HQ left, right and center. Underdog feels defeated and powerless, but Damsel's Johnson survives and wants revenge. Underdog and Damsel chase after Dragon.
Mechanics
For the assault part, I was planning to create sufficient forces for Damsel and Dragon, and I was thinking something along these lines. Underdog would be exposed to one-sided communication updates regarding how Damsel was coping with Dragon's forces, progressively getting worse and re-enforcing an impending sense of loss as Underdog fails to make it back in time to save the majority. One thing I haven't decided though, is whether any element of it should be left to dice rolls, and whether Damsel and Dragon should get any rolls with regards to armies, who knows! Maybe Damsel is able to outwit Dragon's forces and drive them off!
For Underdog, one of them would be making Drive rolls, and the rest may or may not be dealing with enemies tailing them as they make their way back to Damsel's HQ. Underdog may need to make a roll in order to listen to Damsel's army chatter, or Underdog may be being actively jammed by Dragon's forces and Underdog may need to get their decker on case as a result.
For Damsel, they would be holding the fort, the Spiders and System Administrators using Gunnery for the remote-controlled defense systems. This would determine the percentage of Dragon's troops that make it past the front door, and whether Damsel receives any additional damage from rocket-artillery. From there, the soldiers would be making rolls to attack and defend against Dragon's troops.
For Dragon, they may be simultaneously pursuing Underdog, or maybe not. Dragon would make rolls for rocket artillery, airdropping troops, using tank shells on parts of Damsel's HQ, and controlling the footsoldiers trying to get through the front defences. From there, Dragon's soldiers would be making rolls to attack and defend against Dragon's troops, and maybe eventually Underdog if Underdog manage to make it to Damsel's HQ in good time.
Army Resource Managment
For the two factions, I was thinking something like this:
Damsel's Army
250 PL4 Cannon Fodder
50 PL5 Paramilitary
2 Light Tanks
2 APCs
1 Modified MBT
4 SAMS
4 Explosive Missile Countermeasure Turrets
4 Gate (South Wall) Droneturrets
2 Droneturrets on all other walls (west, north, and east)
Dragon's Army
300 PL4 Cannon Fodder
150 PL5 Paramilitary
4 Rocket Artillery
2 MBTs
2 APCs
2 Bomber Planes
5 Transport Helos
Further adding to this, if this is in the middle of a city, would the city get involved in this?
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Um ... if the corporate facility is in the middle of a city (security rating B or better), yeah. And not just the city, but every corporation around. This, right here, is exactly what the corporations do not want having happen. Damsel - presuming they were at least a national A-rated corporation, and presuming they could prove it was Dragon who did the dirty deed (which it would appear they could have, if just from the video alone), then they would apply to the Corporate Court for restitution - and the Court would give it to them.
See, rule #1 in the Shadowrun world, no matter if it's Black Trenchcoat, Pink Mohawk, or some variation of it, is this: Don't Get Caught. This applies to corporations as well as shadowrunners; moreso, really. Because when the corporation gets caught, they tend to lose major amounts of assets, not only for repayment but in punitive damages.
Out-and-out corp warfare in the city streets? I can very easily see the corporate court having an emergency meeting for this, waiting for a stray cannon round to land OUTSIDE jurisdiction, and then dropping a Thor on the entire group, Dragon, Damsel, and Underdog alike. The message? "Don't do that shit."
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Much in the same way that the Mayor of the city in Romeo + Juliet (the modernized version of the play in film form with Leonardo De Caprio) would not tolerate any kind of conflict between the two mafia families, I can appreciate that the level or force, whether it's the same or excessive, would not be tolerated in Shadowrun, especially given the fact that there would be many eyewitnesses to this.
Evidence can be fabricated (and it is shadowrun), people can be payed off, and some members of the corporate court would be bias to the megacorp from the outset. However there are ultimately consequences for both parties for engaging in this scale of fighting.
I get this, but barring scrapping an integral narrative element in the story, I'm trying to find some way to make this event happen, whilst preserving Shadowrun's lore integrity.
Ultimately whether Dragon decides whether it's a smart idea or not to attack Damsel is their decision, it might be the wrong one, however, this narrative takes place at least a decade after their Mega's internal corruption is stamped out, in addition, quite an important member of the court is rumoured to have passed away, so an Exec is kind of pulling the strings. Ultimately, it's not implausible that a Mega would screw up at some point.
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Not ... to this level, honestly. For my money, either this happens out in the middle of BFE, or Dragon steps back from going over the frickin' edge and earning a pretty severe spanking from the Corporate Court, because again, this is exactly why the Court exists. If you want Damsel destroyed (which I presume you do), you have Dragon step up operations against them, because a lower-tier corporation simply doesn't have the resources necessary to fight a higher-tier corporation on their own and win. (I will note that while Dragon is distracted, any and all same- or higher-level megacorporations - presuming Dragon is an AA - will notice that they're distracted and start slicing off juicy pieces of both corps for themselves.) And when I say 'operations', I mean legal and illegal ones. Stock manipulations. Going after their subsidiaries, destruction ops, intellectual property theft, all the things that shadowrunners get paid for. This is, however, only my interpretation of how the Shadowrun world works. It's your game; you can have this happen, but you really should be consistent; it should happen with a fair amount of frequency.
That said, yes, you can make this event work as an integral part of your PCs' evolution. So far, from what I'm understanding, they've been field ops (PMC presumably means 'para-military contractors' ... ??) for Damsel, and Damsel has, for some reason, gone after and highly irritated Dragon, who is higher in the food chain than Damsel is. So Dragon ... I dunno, goes through about a zillion cutouts and hires someone organized to lay the pain down on Damsel Co. and their main HQ, which is Dragon's only hope of remaining anonymous in this action and avoiding Corporate Court retribution. I'm somewhat presuming by your description that Damsel Co. is going to be functionally obliterated as a corporation ... which means it's a perfect time to turn the PCs loose as true shadowrunners. Have the whole 'corporation attack' happening in the background, send a couple of kill teams after the PCs. Have them win, and decide what to do next.
And no, it's not implausible that a megacorporation would 'screw up' at some point, but at this level of activity, there's a major price to be paid ...
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This information is very relevant.
To open it up with a bit more context, I have this split into five scenarios, but I'll talk about the first three for now as I still have more to figure out:
First Scenario: Underdog are hired by Damsel and told about Dragon's operations to undermine Damsel's financial security, basically, Dragon has Damsel backed into a corner and wants Damsel to sell their company to Dragon, as Dragon wants something of great importance, in a vault locked down tighter than anything else, a smash and grab effort by Dragon would be futile. To end all this Damsel need's Dragon's Exec taken out of the picture.
On top of that, it turns out Dragon has made the perfect weapon to force their way into this room and steal this item of great importance, and Damsel wants it destroyed, a different Johnson approaches them as they leave Damsel's HQ, and the Johnson wants Underdog to steal the project for them. Underdog can either Destroy the weapon and gain a larger amount of XP and a smaller amount of cash, or Underdog can steal the weapon and give it to the second Johnson for a standard amount of xp, a larger amount of money, and some possible consequences in the future. For bonus cash, Underdog can choose to lie to Damsel. In destroying the weapon, Underdog may anger this second Johnson.
Second scenario: Dragon's Exec is spotted, not in his AAA security megacorp building, Damsel wants him taken out, Underdog attack the Exec, but the twist is that it's an impostor armed to the teeth.
Third scenario: Damsel needs a plan to assassinate the Exec in his AAA security megacorp building, and they head to a facility where the Mega's data and records are being held, Underdog extracts the information they need from there, but find that Damsel's HQ is being attacked at the same time (Perhaps by an external contractor).
A potential problem here Is that Damsel would have all the digital evidence it needs to prove a mega attacked an A level corporation. The corporate court should have everything it needs, but then that could be fabricated. In addition, if this evidence is accepted by the corporate court, how long would it take to process and carry out jurisdiction. And how would I go about extending the campaign into two more sessions if the Mega was already taken care of by the Corporate Court?
EDIT: I have been really busy the past week or so, and It looks like Sunday is the next time I'm going to be able to plan and re-write this topic when I want to ask some pointed questions.
I've been talking to my group about the scenario, there are four who attend regularly, they are split into four archetypes:
The Jester (He's very interested in my scenario, and really wants to play it when it's done. He's the one who requested the campaign I'm making)
The Storyteller (Is interested in playing, and will try to poke holes into the system if I leave any exposed, such as opposed charisma tests where he tricked a guy into handing over the keys to an armoury).
The Videogamer (I haven't asked him for his opinion, but his temperament tells me he will try to powergame and not roleplay, and this campaign I'm working on might not be his thing. Last time he got hung up in combat for ages and didn't manage to hack an awful lot as a decker as The Academic kept blowing up Jackpoints inadvertently with his Grenade Launcher. I'm considering swapping him out for a more interested person as he has to travel by train to get to where the game's being hosted).
The Academic (Hates Shadowrun, I mean really hates it, he considers it a half-baked derivative of Cyberpunk 2020 and slams the mechanics for being obtrusive to the story, he doesn't take Shadowrun seriously because of what he claims is a lack of realism that isn't imported over from Cyberpunk. He says he has to get drunk to play my scenario, and will *try* it, but I think that's disrespectful and I am considering getting someone to replace him as one of the team members if he's going to be like that).