So my players have gotten themselves in a relatively bad spot. The situation isn't hopeless but honestly extracting their fat from the fire is going to be a pretty solid test of not only their characters abilities, but their own ability to think tactically. I mostly post up here because I like to hear myself think, and because it gives me a chance to double check myself.
The Setting: New York, allowing me to contrast the relatively normal area of the surrounding burroughs and the lawlessness of the terminal and some of the worse sections of the city with the surveillance state "safe" society of the island itself. Basically we get to cater to multiple different mission types and playstyles relatively seamlessly.
The History: I have a shadowrun campaign that's been going somewhere between 2 and 3 months now. The characters have just started to get enough rep and karma going to start to receive jobs from the corporate sector where as previously they were doing business primarily for independents and the syndicates. Over the course of their exploits the Mafia came to believe that they were affiliated with some branch of law enforcement. This is based mostly on some factor or wrong time, wrong place, and their own propensity for impersonating police.
In a mission a few weeks ago they were hired to recover an item that was laying dormant and forgotten in a bank vault. Getting the item to the surface they took it to a pre-arranged location to pop it open so their Johnson could inspect the contents remotely. Their Johnson was thorough and provided them a basic biocontainment setup to open the case within and hazmat suits. They opted to suit up and have the case be opened withint he containment tent by a spirit of man, who was promptly eaten "alive". Then the stuff inside the tent breached the tent and got out into the surrounding atmosphere. Because it was relatively near downtown Manhattan NBC detectors pretty much immediately started going off. Their J commed them to let them know the deal was still on, but that they were very hot right now and needed to get rid of the other canisters of biocontaminant within the case and then deliver the artifact to him. He offered a bonus as a blow softener for this additional work.
Meanwhile as all this was happening two gentlemen with distinct irish accents attempted to pack their stuff and drive out of the area at high speed from a storage unit nearby. While the teams initial intent was to carjack them they instead decided to pitch the canisters into those guys storage unit (a bolthole type setup upon further examination) and then run. They stole a boat and through various means slipped the net. They saw the Irishmen getting picked up by the cops on the highway that runs parallel to the shore.
In the intervening time they did a mission that got one fo their members a 60 second light copy spot on various new channels as he attempted to run from a flock of NYPDinc drones dragging them behind him like a cape. All's well that end's well as his crimes he was being chased for were mostly in relation to a otherwise legal fugitive apprehension so while he did get taken in by the cops no criminal charges were pressed once he paid restitution and fines.
Unfortunately, those Irishmen? They were Knights of the Red Branch, and their brothers and sisters took the whole thing kind of personal, and since the IR...err KoRB and the Mafia have a fairly good working relationship they'd already been sharing notes on the the runners. The Mob had adopted a live and let live policy, the Knights however are out for blood. The troll that was picked up in jail was arranged to be handed into Knights custody. They doped him with stuff to make him complacent while still in jail and then took him to a pub and got him too hammered to stand. They then arranged for a very conspicuous box to be visible under the riggers van when she and the rest of the team were going to go pick him up.
The full details of some of the teams previous adventures can be found at my wikia:
http://lurkersshadowrunworld.wikia.com/wiki/Lurkersshadowrunworld_Wiki Revel in the lack of articles and long winded poorly written mission synopsis. Marvel at how only half my gaming group has done character writeups even when bribed with karma.
To make things simple the team got brought to a neutral meeting spot to have a chat with the Knights with their team mates life in the balance. The Knights for their part were very straight forward, normally they kill people for getting their own picked up by the cops, but they were inclined to let bygones be bygones if the runners undid what they'd done.
Here comes one of my dreaded moral choices: The runners could break into the Roosevelt Island, then break into the max security prison there (really really hard) and rescue the guys they'd framed. Or they could break into the biohazard containment unit the coroners office had and steal the cannisters from there (comparatively easy) and turn it over to the Knights, were were pretty gleeful about the fact that they'd love to see what happens when they dump the stuff on the shroud. Once they agreed to the job Torkian was released by the Knights as a sign of good faith and the runners were given a deadline of three days to complete their assignment as that's when there's be an evidential hearing in the Knights case. No evidence, minimal problems.
Wanting to be out from under the Knights crosshairs in the shortest amount of time possible the runners after some initial debate set off for the Coroners office. Other then a stop by their favorite ID forger for a few ID's from his collection they opt to dress up like dockwagon doing a body drop at the coroners office. Two of the team will go in as docwagon, two of the team will go in as bodies. I say sure why not. Their technomancer gets access to the buildings internals and puts them on the schedule to get them past the checkpoint with barely more then a fuss. She confirms she can't access the containment facilities network so it must be completely sequestered and accessed through hard lines or other means. The team forges ahead and triggers an alarm in the complex proper to BS their way into the containment lab. After a humorous moment where their depressurized in the airlock (so guys, make me a breath holding test!) they make it through into the containment facility proper. A tech and two guards escort them into the body storage area where the dead rise. Unfortunately their ambush isn't as quick or complete as they'd like. Turns out SR bodybags are pretty solid, something about shedim. In any case they disable the guards and the tech but the gunfire gets other guard and tech attention who trigger an alert. They make it to the vault disabling a couple guards to do so and start to work on the vault, but because of poor planing they were without proper tools having to rely on what they scrounged in the lab.
Where we broke for the night is the rigger about to disable some follow on forces, a pair of detectives rolling up and gearing up in the parking lot. It's going to take them a minimum of 10 minuets to breach the vault, quite possibly more.
So at this point i'm thinking if they don't cut and run (mission failure, but preferable to mission death) their in a bad but not completely unwinnable spot. The biggest question will be if they can retain control of the buildings matrix systems and keep the astral space clear of onlookers to deny the enemy information. The biggest thing working in their favor other then their current control of the building position and a dug in position is that NYPDinc supressed information on what was under containment, and would like to keep it that way to avoid some awkward questions. So they can't just throw tactical teams at the problem until it goes away. Current plan on my part is the block gets cordoned off under cover of "a gas leak" while NYPD sends in a single tactical team to try and ascertain the situation and infiltrate the facility. If that team fails or if they are able to determine that the runners are about to breach the vault they'll likely call for a full on multilevel response and damn the publicity. Fortunately if the runners play their cards right they should be gone or at least running from the position before the murder machine kicks into high gear.
Final stuff: I'm a hard ass GM, i reward the runners well and make them work for it. I believe at a certain level the rest of the game world is staffed by competent people, who while not necessarily on the same raw caliber as the runners individually have a fair amount of information at their fingertips and resources at their disposal. There will be no easy outs from the mission, no conspiracies of enemy of my enemy to save them. The counter to that is i seldom if ever do "oh look random happinstance to screw you" everything in my game world happens for a reason, even if that reason isn't directly related to the runners.
If their apprehended it's game over for any characters who are caught. Breaking in to a police lab to steal a WMD is not something you get out on bail on. Nor are the cops going to be in a catch and release or deal cutting mood. The smartest actual choice at this point is to run right now and not look back and get out before the response team arrives, in fact I plan on putting that to a vote at the start of the session. But presuming they commit, which I think they will, they'll ride this train through to the very end and hopefully the survivors have learned a valuable lesson about recon.
So the question is, am I being reasonable? Is there something i'm over looking that might dramaticly change the game?
Also anyone have an idea for something that could be in the lab to be looted as a door prize, something relatively portable that they could turn into some ready cash when all is said and done?
TLDR: My players really stuck their foot in it this time, any thing I should keep in mind while applying lube to the drill? And valid non fiat reason I shouldn't just do my utmost to kill them all?
