Either way, I've had Duck back away from his action. I have to admit here that it's a little frustrating to see what appears to be a complete 180 from the plan based on the fact that Duck's winning. Seems like you wanted to see him humbled in combat, maybe, and weren't preparing for him to end up coming out ahead in the exchange?

I really don't know here. I'm confused. Trying to keep all players and characters happy, but yeah, I'm now sort of flummoxed as to what I could possibly do or what would have been expected out of Junior to keep everyone satisfied.

I, as a player, don't mind in the least if White Duck fights Junior.  If he wants to try and humiliate Junior, that is fine by me, especially considering White Duck's backstory.  Caduceus does not necessarily know what I know, and so he may be a little less sure about White Duck's course of action.  However, Caduceus is content to wait and see how White Duck does.

So I have no problems with White Duck continuing with his original plan.

Yeah. I have to say what confuses me the most is how CH is getting the perception from Duck that he's now made some mortal enemy because of his actions... I mean, this guy just tried to ambush us with a strike team and get ALL of us killed. Doesn't that pretty much mean he's already made a mortal enemy out of us? How are his telegraphed actions seen as out-of-line or risky here when he's trying to put someone down who's pulling sucker-punches and trying to kill us?

I had suggested having him humiliated in private with a recording so we'd have leverage.  That was risky, but manageable because we'd have insurance  Humiliation in public is a different beast - we lose the leverage and just have the cost.  In fact, we have a higher cost because if Junior doesn't take action against us, he loses face.  Private humiliation he could just have sucked up if the consequences of acting on it were too high.  As well, you've just disfigured him.  That's not the sort of thing you can just paper over.  Every time he looks in the mirror, he'll have a permanent reminder of us and how much he hates us.

Sending a strike team against us is just biz.  That's not making a mortal enemy.  We're going to be on the pointy end of a lot of strike teams from a lot of corps and individuals.  Once the run is over, he'd probably forget us and us him.  Someone trying to kill me because their objectives oppose my current employer's objectives is not personal.  I might well go to work for them next week.  Our objective was to extract information and dissuade further intervention until after the run was done without provoking any desire for intervention after the run was complete.  Now, it may be that Junior is the sort of opposition that holds a grudge and he may hold a grudge down to the messenger level rather than the "who hired the messenger" level, but that's not something we can assume yet and it's actually pretty rare in this world.

However, we've just made it personal, so he's now a permanent enemy going on from this run.  And if we take him out, we have a whole lot of witnesses who saw us taking on one of Seattle's elite business tycoons.  Hard for Lone Star to ignore that.

We're always going to have opposition.  Sometimes that opposition might be people we want to impress because we'd like to work for them next time.  Sometimes it's people we'd rather avoid in the future, but don't want to annoy.  Occasionally we might have opposition we want to take out, but it would be best to make that decision as a team in advance and figure out how to do it with minimal long-term fallback on the team.  And sometimes we'll be forced into taking someone out in a messy way and then figure out how to deal with the consequences it.

We've sort of backed our way into the last situation.  I'm not exactly sure how we get out of this yet, but I'm sure we can figure out a way.

The good news is the witnesses in the area likely have a code of silence.  No one's going to go running to the cops.  But if the cops come in hard and heavy with nuyen to spend and pressure to bear, at least some of the locals will crack.  Plus the bikers and driver and bodyguard have at least some allegiance to this guy, even if only financial, so they'll certainly share what they know to Junior's corp.

What that means is that we absolutely *can't* kill him right now and he has to be seen alive in public after this if we take him away (which is probably a good idea - things are too hot for us to interrogate him here).  But we need him to die soon from something that looks accidental.  I.e. He needs to die before he can put in place too much of a machine aimed at mulching us.

My current brain-storming includes a delayed-action poison that isn't likely to be picked up in a standard autopsy and manifests as something esle, a subsequent vehicle accident, an attack from someone who isn't us.  Something that's not going to make Lone Star take on too much digging.  (I doubt many people like him or will miss him, so there won't likely be pressure to investigate if there's a decent cover story.)

But as I said, OOC I'm fine with what you're doing.  This particular guy pushes all the wrong buttons given your back story, so go ahead and make him bleed.  Copperhead will sit there swearing at you under her breath and trying to figure out how to dig herself (and perhaps the team) out from under the pile of dreck that's now forming.  However, in the end, we'll muddle through. :>

I think in this case, Copperhead's player is fine with how things are going, and so is White Duck's and everyone else's. However, Copperhead the character is paranoid and, true to the name, prefers to strike from the shadows. White Duck and Copperhead have some drama, which is great--as long as it stays IC :)

I think there's also some player-level philosophy/world understanding that would probably be good to work out to make sure we don't have OOC issues in the future.

I'm of the philosophy that we don't try to kill people who try to kill us unless we have no other options or unless it's part of the contract.  And we're particularly careful about killing people other than peons because drawing the wrong kind of attention can be fatal in the Shadowrun universe.

If others feel differently, we should probably have some discussion about what this particular game's world is really like so we're at least all playing from the same mental model, even if our characters happen to have somewhat different temperaments/risk tolerances/degrees of blood lust.

So I can tell you, SR1/2 is NOT black trenchcoat. When we transition towards that, I will absolutely tell you. And since we're using modules, what you do in one isn't too likely to follow you into the next (unless it's really big, someone very well-connected, or something related to your reputation).

For transparency's sake, I'll say you should definitely avoid:
- Killing lots of innocents/unrelated people
- Killing/harassing your Johnson if they are still keeping up their end of the contract.
- High-profile combat (shooting setting fixtures like Dunky or Mayor of Seattle, or pulling weapons in AA zones). Most NPCs who shoot at you, and pretty much all of the barrens do not fall under this.

Since we're already in the 'White Duck is killing this dude' stage, and we're slowing down due to OOC reasons, I may as well tell you, the module already assumes you're going to kill Junior. For some reason, it assumes you'll let him shoot first rather than gunning him down in cold blood in front of the Johnson, but it doesn't seem like anyone would have been all too very upset had you done that instead.

Very well then.  I shall continue to get my knickers in a not IC (just cuz), but I'll relax a bit OOC and won't worry as much about how we mitigate the mess.  Thank you for clarifying :>

Even if it were a bit more complicated, we do happen to have video evidence of him overseeing a strike team assault on a clinic and pulling not one, but two, cheap moves in a stand-up fight, the second demonstrating a willingness to use lethal force. The law would probably be on our side with this one, whether Junior had a contract with them of not. Also, it's pretty clear that since we reported him as the source of the chip heist/leak to begin with, it's doubtful his corp would send out any people for recompense, especially if it's just to give Junior some reinforcement to his pride/hubris.

Anyway, I went ahead and posted my action out of edits, boss.

Our evidence tying him to the strike team is my video (from a stolen LoneStar drone) fleeing the scene of a gang attack that involved me firing a  restricted heavy weapon and you throwing a woman from the top of a building.  Cheap moves in a fight isn't an indictable offense.  And an exec using lethal force against shadowrunners would be self defense in any corporate court.  The law is *never* on shadowrunners side against a SINned corporate exec.  And so far the only evidence we have that he was in on the heist of the chips are the word of the guy who actually stole the chips and another runner, neither of whom would hold up in court.

Anyhow, killing this guy right now isn't going to help us find the chips.  That was my primary purpose in stopping the limo - to find out what we can about where the chips are - and perhaps to provide some evidence that will assuage our Johnson in the event we can't find the chips.  Making him drek his pants is secondary.

Boss, do you want a will save from me to reflect Duck trying not to kill the guy? Got that combat monster flaw to worry about, after all.

EDIT: Here it is, in case you do.

10:27, Today: White Duck rolled 4 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 4,5,5,1,3,4.  Willpower.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:28, Wed 06 July 2016.

Oh! Forgot about that. Yeah... definitely a good idea to roll. What a shame, success ;)

Sorry for the series of edits there. All done. Wanted the post's flavoring to be on point.

Umm, I'm not sure Caduceus wants to be alone in the main part of the van with a pissed off orc with the door closed, so you might want to edit one more time . . .

(If necessary, I can gas the entire back section, but I doubt Caduceus would be terribly more impressed with that either. :>)

So is this the end of the fight?  Or not?  I'm rather confused by the amount of edits that's been going on.

Oh, and am I more or less healed...yet?

My guess is Junior will have a reaction to being "thrown" into the van.  And we don't yet know what actions, if any, his body guards or the bikers will take.

Last we heard, you were sitting on the table with newly cleaned (but still exposed) innards.  So raising a bit of a fuss and getting them to finish the job might not be a bad idea.  And of course we have our mage friend that we'd like to chat with more if we can too, so figuring out where she is once you're up and around would be good too.  (Though she may well have bolted.)

The van might be a bit cozy to try to cart everyone around though, so I'm open to alternatives.

Cad has a gun, right? Can't we just hold that to him here? He's already beaten to hell. The throw was an attempt to narratively resolve the fight with him, but if Bear wants me to roll on it, I shall.

Also, Duck's trying to establish some friendly contact with the local go-gangers here. A little scrap and the sharing of cigarettes goes a longer way with these types than fancy discourse. If they fondly remember Duck, it could get us out of trouble later on down the timeline, and it seems at this point that it'd only come at the cost of a few potential bumps and bruises.

Anyway, I'd prefer not to edit again, so I'll hold off on doing so I can get some feedback as to whether rolls are required.

I don't know if he's armed or not, actually.  I guess we'll find out :>

The ork has frigging spurs come out of his hands.  How is he not armed?

I think she meant me, Noruas.

Caduceus has a gun.  He's not particularly skilled with it though, but Junior doesn't know that.  He was also currently holding a stun grenade in one of his hands.  He could also use his Influence spell or some spirit magic on Jr. if need be.  That being said, he will probably still not like being confined alone with him for long.

Yes, attempts to manhandle Junior will require a roll, likely multiple. If he was stupid, he'd have kept fighting even when he's clearly losing. Going into an unmarked van full of professional killers he just tried to gun down in the street is really not on his to-do list for the day.

Then I'll just open the door for him for practicality's sake.

I don't think he'll go where you want without a further show of force.  I was about to fire a bunch of full-auto a meter or two in front of him as he was walking to his car when you said you grabbed him.  So you can either grab him and do some more combat, or you can let him walk and I can expend some ammo to help convince him that's a bad idea.  But just opening the door isn't going to stop him from walking back to his car - which it'll be much harder to extract him from.

If he hesitates, then go ahead and fire.

I mean, I figured he wouldn't want to get into the van, that's why I wanted to just go ahead and kill him right there...:P
This message was last edited by the player at 18:14, Fri 08 July 2016.

FYI, I was planning to wait and see how Jr. reacted to being asked to go into the vehicle before posting what Caduceus does about it.  He'll probably just keep his gun pointed at the guy though.