Hello, dear Shadowy people. I come to you again with a new question.
It has been forever since I GM'd properly (22 years or so) and I barely remember anything from that time. Now, the archetypical run is to break into a research facility and steal a prototype. I want to do something like that as a warm up sort of deal but I don't really feel confident about my ability to do so on the fly without a good example. Any of you mind sharing some info about a successful lab run you hosted or played inr or possibly a published adventure that had a good one?
As always, thanks a lot for your help.
Well, I didn't run my players through a neuroscience lab lately (which ought to be an interesting locale to create), I did run them through a drug lab not too long ago set up by, of all people, the Ancients. I won't bore you with the details of this, but suffice it to say this lab was set up in a packaging factory, and they were venting chemical fumes out of the lab in a sub-fab section closed off from the rest of the facility into the steam stack out the top of the factory. Pretty slick, if I do say so myself.
Anyway, this lab was protected by a rudimentary Host that was constantly monitored remotely by a couple of Hackers taking turns while the lab was in operation, and some physical security attended to by some low-level Ancient members themselves. The lab itself was small, only 600 square feet (30'x20'), and it was patterned after Gus Fring's set up for Walter White and Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad, though their lab was a bit larger.
Here are some of the details.
The Separate Host of the Lab itself had a rating of 3, and it's attributes were Attack 3, Sleaze 4, Data Processing 5, and Firewall 6. I did this because the operative goal was simply for the Host Hackers to even know if there was any intrusion, and be able to track the intruder to their destination and send Ancients accordingly. The available IC were Black IC (6), naturally, Tar Baby (6), Track (6)and Patrol, but the main countermeasures were going to be from the Hackers themselves, and the only way to get into this Host was to go through the Host of the factory first, unless you were already inside the Lab (good luck with that).
Physical Security was in the form of five Ancients, armed with pistols and shotguns that they could conceal either on themselves or in the facility, and they wore armored clothing underneath coveralls to blend in with the other employees (all of whom knew who they were). They also had a Mage there among them, but this mage was a drug-addicted lout and very unreliable. Any solid attack on this lab would cause them all to run and get help, and have one of them track the attackers after the event to get them back later. To get into the factory, all one needed was a ID card that any decent Hacker could replicate or just bribe one of the employees for one (or three)
This was not meant to be a high level security situation, and my PCs were able to find the place and wipe it out in short order.
A Corporate Neuroscience Lab would probably have much better security, naturally. It would be a larger facility with other medical labs, plenty of physical and matrix security, and probably some good magical security as well. If you want the PCs to get a specific physical item, particularly something valuable, it would be locked up, either in a safe or behind a door with a Maglock with a decent rating.
Since you want a first run on this, make this a small facility (maybe in a three-story commercial building in the commercial section of town) which is rented or leased by another company, so the corp in charge doesn't have to spend so much money on security themselves, except in the lab itself. The building owners could provide matrix and physical security, but these guys are there to immediately inform the local police forces of any intrusion, not to stand up and fight the PCs if they can at all help it, because they're not paid well enough to risk their necks.
So, I'd give the overall building host a rating of 5, with appropriate IC dedicated more to looking for intruders and less for killing intruders. Getting into the building requires a key-card issued to each authorized employee, and getting one is easy. Getting into the lab would require a separate key card, and if this is a small facility there would likely only be a dozen or so people who have such a card. If you want to get fancy, you could require biometric ID instead of a key-card for the lab itself; getting into the office may only require a simple RFID key card. This makes it a challenge, but certainly not insurmountable. The lab could be monitored with CCTV, pressure sensors, all of which logs activity to a database in the Lab's Host which then sends it to the building's Host. The Lab's host could be a slightly higher rating, maybe a 6, but I'd go with a 5 for simplicity. Just an added layer of security for the facility's owners.
Naturally you'll want someone for the PCs to shoot at. I did mention the building's own security guards, whose only job is to get to safety the instant they spot an intruder and immediately notify the cops, who should start arriving in 2d6 minutes from notification, and likely the first to arrive will be a couple of squad cars with two cops in each. Of course, this depends on the location, who the cops are, and so on. But you'll want someone to stand their ground in the lab itself, and these guys will only run if the opposition looks too strong for them to handle themselves, but they will defend it with lethal force (this is Shadowrun, after all). Magical security? It's up to you, but you might consider not having any there for this one. Mages and shamans should be a bit more expensive than a small corp is willing to pay, hoping that their physical security measures will deter most intrusions. A good mage worth his salt can make life for PCs tough if he knows what he's doing. But one option is to have the Mage somehow figure out what it is the PCs are after and take the item out of the facility, hiding it in another location. You should determine just what the Mage is going to do, what his plan of action is, and if he's being paid enough to face a determined opposition willing to kill him, because PCs are notoriously vicious. If I were having a Mage or Shaman present there, for this starting run, I'd have the Mage track the PCs astrally, and never engage them directly. He's too valuable for that. Recovering the item and delivering vengeance upon the interlopers is a higher priority.
