I'm pretty sure we can arm-twist him into getting into the van.  He doesn't have a lot of cards at the moment.  We're clearly in a position where we *could* kill him outright.  We're choosing not to.  But we also have shown we're more than willing to push "typical" cultural boundaries.

If necessary, we can knock him out first.  But I definitely think we should interrogate him before killing him.  He paid for the chips to be stolen.  So logically he either has them or knows where they are.  And that's worth several 100k to us.

All this trouble, maybe I should've just iced him on the spot.

Eh, you gave him a chance.

We still need to learn where the chips are.  And mind-probe works better on a living subject ;>

He probably doesn't know where the chips are either.

From an OOC perspective, I agree.  (We haven't chased enough wild gooses for it to be this easy :>)  From an IC perspective, we know he hired the runners to steal the chips, so if anyone should either have them or know who does, it'd be him.

True, though the situation has caused Duck to question CH's logic a bit as well- why stop him from killing Junior if her intent is either to pepper the guy and his goons with bullets or kidnap and torture him?

Duck's logic, not mind: Is torturing/interrogating him and THEN killing him the more logical, humane course here according to CH? She calls Duck off just before he can deliver a killing blow, but intends worse if Junior survives. It's not likely he'll be as compliant with such requests in the future due to the foreseen outcomes being a bit of a moot point.

Anyway, I think it would be suitable at this point to just take out the thugs. It would make Junior's signal to them what got them killed. While Junior probably wouldn't care, these guys inside the limo will at least die a suitably ironic death.

Copperhead isn't terribly concerned with being humane where Junior's concerned.  Her objectives are to complete the mission and to ensure her own long-term well-being.  So killing him before we get the needed information or in a way that might easily be traceable to them aren't good options for her.  Killing him after they've got the data they need, preferably in a way that's unlikely to case much backsplash is fine.

Copperhead generally avoids killing unless there's a specific benefit.  She won't kill the thugs if she can knock them unconscious.  And she won't destroy the vehicle if she thinks there's a chance she might be able to "acquire" it relatively unscathed.  If/when the bodyguard steps out, she'll drop him (hopefully before he shoots you full of lead).  And if necessary, she'll take out the car too.  With the "slow" in effect, should hopefully be able to deal with both before they interfere with you.  Your job is to subdue Junior and keep him from running away, which I expect is his next plan - using his cronies to keep us distracted.

Subdual at this point isn't on Duck's list of options. This guy's constantly tried to kill us, and since Duck isn't exactly in it for the Darwin awards, he's now intent on ending the threat permanently. As a player, I'm no longer interested in seeing the other ways this guy can try to screw us over. Duck figures searching his corpse might lead to more info than anything he'd tell us anyway. If Junior had any chance of survival, it would have been present before he signaled his guys, but after not one, not two, but three sucker-punch attempts straight, he's had it. Ever hear the old adage of "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me?" Fool Duck thrice and you pay the price. At this point, unless CH ventilates and kills Duck on the spot, this whole subdual idea is a wash. He's not going to continually allow someone that's proven himself a real threat and obstruction to the job any more opportunities to throw a wrench into the works.

Also, as far as backsplash is concerned, we're clearly on gang turf, and it isn't likely for the Star to show up anytime soon. Also, Duck told Roxanne that if Junior became more of a problem, that we'd potentially have to eliminate him already, plus info about Junior's double-cross. I'm interested to see who comes after us when he *does* die, as that might be a more solid lead than anything he could give us.

So, that said, Duck is going to do his job, put this guy out permanently, and search his pockets. We can't have a holding hands and talking party with every scumbag we come across.

Also, Duck isn't really into interrogation/torture at all, so this idea that CH seems to have that the only way to get information from people being kidnapping and torturing it out of them is a little...off for someone who has a code-of-ethics about killing.

If I recall correctly, the same suggestion was put forth over the decker we questioned, and it seemed like the go-to strategy despite the situation being resolved nonviolently.

To Duck, it's MUCH less ethical to consistently practicing methods that have folks potentially permanently scarred mentally and physically then sending them on their way instead of just putting them down. CH is coming across as a tad...sadistic to him at this point.

I agree we need to kill him, just not yet.

Normally, I don't see someone trying to kill me as a reason to kill them back.  The real question is what's going to reduce my overall risk.  If Lonestar shoots at me with live rounds, I shoot back with gel.  Whether they shoot at me twice or 10 times doesn't really matter.  I don't take them trying to kill me personally, and I'd rather not have "murder of a police officer" on my rap sheet if I can avoid it.  (Because that dramatically increases the chances of every cop I meet there-after shooting at me even more frequently than they otherwise might.)

In this case though, the risk of letting Junior live is higher than killing him, so there's no question he needs to end up dead.  The question is the timing.

I'm not advocating for torture.  Verbal persuasion, drugs, magic are all preferred options in my books.  And doing that without kidnapping is also preferred, but I think kidnapping is sort of required here - no chance he'll cooperate voluntarily.

Sure, we can kill him and search his body.  But searching his head is a whole lot more productive.  And with drugs, magic and verbal persuasion, I'm pretty sure we can extract more than we can get by checking his pockets (though we can probably get quite a bit from his electronics).  Him trying to kill us doesn't change it being useful to extract information before he's dead.  It just increases the likelihood he's going to end up dead once we've got the information.

Normally I'd be cautious about us killing a high level exec, but Papa said don't worry, so I'll just do some minor hand-wringing IC.  OOC, I want him dead too.  Just not quite yet.

Copperhead is all about the mission objectives.  Within the mission parameters, she's about avoiding risk and keeping impact on innocents to a minimum.  She gets no pleasure from hurting Junior.  If the mission would be best satisfied by him being dead, he'd have a bullet in his head already.  But the mission is to find the chips and there's reasonable odds that keeping him alive for questioning will lead to the chips sooner than putting a bullet in his head.  So question him now and then, from a risk perspective, put a bullet in his head outside the back door of a chop-shop.  (No point in his body going to waste . . . :>)

I just don't see the reason to kill him before finding out what he knows.  We have a choice - 1. kill him and don't ask questions or 2. ask questions, then kill him.  What are the benefits of #1 vs. #2?  He certainly should know where the chips are - he organized the run to acquire them.

We don't have to waste a lot of time on this.  We can speed it up and just describe the techniques we're using - drugs + magic + persuasion and make the rolls.

If you absolutely have to kill him without asking questions first for IC reasons, I guess I can live with that, but CH is going to be annoyed and OOC, I don't think it makes any sense.

Drugs, magic, and verbal persuasion are all sort of dishonorable, and it's VERY unlikely that someone demonstrably this stubborn isn't going to give us anything useful.

As far as him knowing where the chips are, it's likely that the group of runners he hired, to which we just got leads on, will know more than Junior. As far as abducting him to kill him more elaborately later, the third request to interrogate someone, which Duck isn't comfortable with to begin with, doesn't make objective sense, and he's going to refuse to do that or any further aggressive questioning himself. At present, the situation is set up to that CH has treated Duck like he's a member of the Gestapo, ripped out of the threads of time to serve at her disposal like some personally-owned interrogation drone, and he simply isn't.

Duck goes by the old school honor-bound samurai traditions to an extent. Killing Junior here is more about personal honor, integrity, and missed chances on Junior's part to recant and come peaceably. Dragging him off in a van, tying him up, and even allowing the rest of the group to probe and prod him, despite his insults, is something Duck sees as despicable and honorless. It also seems to be the type of tactic Junior would employ personally.

Also the reason to kill him before getting the chance to torture him seems pretty clear to me, what with that attempt he just made to kill all of us, the recent repeated attempts to fight dirty against Duck, and the overall shitty attitude he carries that suggests he's not going to talk unless we put him into a torture situation. In other words, he's not likely at all to tell us what he knows with whatever methods you want to employ, and since Duck's fed up with condoning this method of questioning, it's going to be even more difficult to get him to talk, as your designated talker with ranks in verbal interrogation isn't going to interrogate yet another person at your character's behest.

While Duck doesn't necessarily think anyone trying to kill him needs to be killed back, as things aren't always so black and white, in this particular instance, we're dealing with someone who needs to be promptly eliminated as based on the evidence of him being as much of a nuisance as possible whilst alive.

Also, seeing as we're in the Barrens, I'm still not certain as to exactly why we need to drive to some other alleyway to do the deed and we can't just use the one we're in. The "Law Enforcement" present in the form of those two Orc go-gangers don't seem to take issue with us fighting it out- seems like they just want to see some action. Duck is masked, and there's already evidence that we chased his limo into this alleyway guns blazing whether we kill him or whether he turns up in a different alley or gets sold to organleggers.

The completely conspicuous car chase with partially destroyed buildings and bulletholes all over the place, the smoke in the air, the witnesses in the car, and the gangers on the street make the coop of Junior's dying quietly already flown. In fact, it's *more* likely that someone will come looking for us if he's presumed still living, as fewer folks would want to send a rescue team in to fetch a corpse. If he lives and is put into our van, however, his status would be unknown instead of KIA, and that's much more likely to attract the attention CH is trying to avoid.

In other words, someone might take a hefty paycheck from any party interested in getting Junior back, but if he dies here, on the street, nobody's going to want to retrieve him but the organleggers. What'll likely occur is that the go-gangers will sell off his meat bod, which may take some viable persuasion, but Duck can manage that.

TL;DR: He's not going to talk, and whether we kill him here or there doesn't implicate us any less than we're already implicated.

One other thing to mention, this whole pacifistic approach when the situation clearly warrants lethal measures can potentially have my character ventilated if the wired guys in that limo react faster than CH can. I might lose my pc because of CH's hesitation to let Duck kill him, since all it's accomplished has been giving him a chance to signal his bodyguards. He wouldn't be under these dire circumstances if Junior would be a corpse presently, so for all of her caution, Duck could go down full of bulletholes right here because she told him to stop a fight that he would have won.

EDIT: 13:57, Today: White Duck rolled 10 using 2d6+6 with rolls of 2,2.  Init (Again).

There's my init roll. With a 10, it's not likely he'll be able to react in time. Now my PC's fate rests in whether or not you do okay with your dice rolls, CH. Good luck.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:58, Tue 12 July 2016.

If honor's a huge thing for your character, then I can understand.  Copperhead would certainly prefer to see persuasion used without magic, drugs or pain being brought into play, but in this case I don't think pure persuasion is going to help.

I don't understand why you feel stubbornness makes a difference in whether those techniques would extract data.  Drugs will reduce his willpower which will make him more amenable to either drugs or words or pain or some combination - and certainly to all 3.  Magic can also be used to reduce willpower, though I don't know if Caduceus has that capability.  And a bit of physical and/or stun damage can reduce his ability to resist questioning.  The whole reason for bringing those things to bear is because he's super stubborn.  I'm pretty sure we can overcome the stubbornness/reluctance.  So the question is "does he actually know anything useful".

Typically if someone hires runners to steal something, very soon after the completion of the run, that stolen thing is given to the one who hired them who may keep it, sell/give it to someone else or, rarely, destroy it.  In fact, that delivery is generally a pre-requisite for the runners getting paid.  We haven't learned anything that would lead us to believe the situation would be different here.

So, in my opinion, we have reason to believe he's likely to know something useful and that we can extract that information if we're willing to apply the appropriate tools/levers.  I think we're also agreed that him trying to kill us multiple times doesn't influence whether or not it's useful to extract information, only whether he should be dead before we let him out of our control.  If we don't have consensus there, we should discuss further.

There are then two questions:
1. Are the PCs comfortable with applying the necessary tools/levers to extract the information Junior does have?
2. Should we do that here or elsewhere?

CH is cautious about doing what I'm proposing to do here as a general tactic.  She wouldn't consider doing it to most folks.  She does have a sense of honor of sorts.  But that sense of honor doesn't extend to protecting dreck like Junior.  She sees him as a scumbag and would have no qualms about seeing him mind-raped or putting his gonads in a vice and turning the crank if it would get her to end of job.  (Note that this is an IC thing - my previous PC would have been fine with drugs but would never have countenanced mind-probes and would have been more squeamish about torture.)

I suspect that Noruas is in the same boat - at least as a player he has often been ok with torture.  I'm hearing that White Duck's honor code would keep him from doing those sorts of things to someone even as scummy as Junior.  And I can respect that OOC.  (IC, Copperhead will grumble, but she'll probably grumble about something regardless.)  And of course, we don't know what Caduceus feels in this space.

In terms of where, our current situation is too exposed.  While I've been jamming, jamming isn't fool-proof.  And it doesn't work beans against land-lines.  If Junior has any friends, they could well have called for support.  And there's always the possibility that there might be a keep-alive signal or something that might send someone looking if Junior's been out of contact for too long.  Finally, we don't know how in Junior's pocket the current gang is or any of the other locals are - and we really don't want to get into an all-out gang fight.  Plus, this is the sort of thing that's generally best done with few witnesses.  Rep is cleaner when there are somethings that aren't broadly known, even if they're suspected.  So moving him elsewhere is about reducing risk and protecting rep.

Your point about it needing to be known he's dead soon is well taken.  I'm fine with making sure his death is publicly known if you feel that's best.  We can either dump his body in a public place, or just take a picture of his removed head and share it with anyone relevant.  (The latter still allows us to grab money from the organ-leggers.  I suspect he's got some high-value cyberware installed.)  So the main benefit of killing him here can still be achieved if we kill him elsewhere, I think and doing it elsewhere provides other benefits.

TL, DR: If you really need to kill him right away for IC needs, so be it.  But from an OOC perspective, extracting information first makes the most sense.


As for you being at risk, you're the one who decided to play fisticuffs which was itself risky.  If you hadn't used Karma, you'd already have been in trouble.  And your chance of being shot by the bodyguard is about the same whether it was triggered by Junior giving a signal or you killing Junior.  (Your odds are slightly better with Junior still alive as the guard has fewer options to kill you without putting his boss at risk.)  So if you get ventilated by the bodyguard, I think it's hard to argue that's on me.

BTW, I'm not a pacifist.  I'm willing to kill/injure/destroy when necessary.  But I don't do it unless it's necessary and I try hard not to do it when it's not directly in support of the job or my own or my team's continued well-being.

Holding off on any further discourse over this issue until the present situation is resolved. Would much prefer to find out whether or not I need to go about making a new character sheet than to discuss the semantics of whether or not to kill Junior now or later.

I doubt very much the guard can kill you to dead in only one shot.  To beat me for initiative, he'll need to be well-wired and roll well.  If not, then I'll be holding action and will nail him as soon as the door or window opens.  If opening the door or window and sticking a smart-linked weapon out is a simple action, best he can do is fire a single un-aimed burst.  If it's a complex action, he'll be dead before he can fire.  The spirit has the gangers tied up and the driver can't get very far very fast with the rubble and the spirit.  And if you do get shot at, you've got your jacket back on and full dodge available. So I think you're pretty safe.

My reason for discussing now is that you'll need to decide whether to kill Junior or capture him when he tries to run - unless he decides to stay cowering in the rubble.

And I'll make that decision depending on the outcomes of the rolls that take place before I can even act.

Sure.

The best way to make them stop shooting at you is probably to have a knife his throat/gun to his head while he's still alive - but I don't think you have either.  Holding his tusk to his throat would work.  Using a playing card would be as real a threat and highly amusing, but probably not as effective a deterrent.  :>

Anyhow, I'll stop yammering and we'll see what happens next.

I was going to raise him up and use him as a human shield.

That could work.  Though if his minions dislike him as much as I think they do, it might only encourage them to open fire . . . ;>

Well, if that's the case, I'd have a human shield to protect me. :)

Still holding off on posting until I see how exactly I manage to avoid dying before my pass in the init. Will update as soon as I know what's going on.

Have the bikers taken any hostile actions towards us yet? We don't want to pick a fight with a go-gang if they're just here to watch the fight.

They haven't done anything.  I asked Caduceus to keep an eye on them.  He had his spirit proactively confuse them.  I'm not sure if they will interpret that as a hostile action or not, but presumably not before we're out of here.

I know they haven't acted yet, but when I act, I need to know which of them are still up, if either, and what the situation is by the time I take my turn. I only rolled a 10 on the init order, CH had a 23, so there's clearly some time that passes in structured format before I get the chance to move Duck around.

So, once again, I'm not going to take my turn outside of init order when, apparently, other things will happen that can change what my character does.

Am I missing something here, or do CH and the goons need to actually take their turn?