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Shadowrun Shenanigans: Poor Smitty...
12 years ago
General
This time, it's a special edition of Shenanigans! I've been playing in a Shadowrun game, and we've been building up to a pretty big heist for a while now. In order to accomplish the heist, we had to essentially ruin the life of one really unfortunate IT guy, so read on if you'd like to know the fate of poor Smitty...
First, the setup. Our team consisted of Hannibal, a troll tank (absurdly high armor and muscles), Ragnarok, a demolitions/stealth specalist, an elf alchemist (magical grenades and traps), and myself, the elf decker/semi-tank (computer nerd with decent combat abilities and able to take a few hits). We had two others, but they were not available during the session that we ran the mission. Our goal for the mission: break into a heavily secured, 55-story government building with only a 4-man team that were all starting level and less than a day to do prep work. Sound insane? It should, because the module intended for us to ally ourselves with one or more other organizations to get professional assistance and vastly superior equipment. But you see, we couldn't do that.
We had a device in our possession that was the key to the whole thing - a pair of commlinks that each contained half of a file that, when combined, pointed out the location of a stash of evidence that will totally bring down the very corrupt governor of Seattle. The information was contained in the 10th floor server room of that very secure government building I mentioned above. Lots of corporations knew we had the commlinks, so they were offering us money to hand them over, like about $100k to $250k each. We also received an offer from an agent of the corrupt governor, offering us $400k to hand over the commlinks. Naturally, being the good shadowrunners that we are, we immediately started planning how we could get the $400k AND still get at the information stored in the government building. That meant that we would have to meet the government agent, hand over the commlinks, and then at the SAME TIME, or else very shortly after, successfully complete our raid on the building. Remember that we also had only 24 hours to plan and carry out the mission, and we were only at starting level. In other words, we had no time or money to get better gear or to do any kind of serious prep work.
The most frightening part was that, as the decker, it would be up to me to hack into the server and get the data off of it. And that was not going to be easy. I was a pretty good hacker, but this is a pretty serious place - at best, I would be evenly matched against each individual camera in the building, but it had a LOT of cameras and other security measures. Eventually, the dice would not be in my favor and we'd be caught. Plus the server itself was very tough, so I'd have to get very lucky several times in a row to successfully hack it. If at any time my hacking tools were destroyed during the run, which is a possibility in EVERY hacking attempt, that was it, game over. Suffice to say, I was not confident that the dice would be on my side for the entire run, so I needed an ace up my sleeve, and remember that I had less than 24 hours to find it.
After a good deal of reading through the rulebooks, and questioning the GM, I discovered that there was an IT guy that managed that particular server. All of the necessary credentials to get onto the server and into the building's security would be on that guy's commlink. I made a call to the building we were to infiltrate and pretended to be from the local power company. I said that we had noticed some strange fluctuations coming from a server in that building, and asked who managed the servers around the 10th floor. The receptionist responded that it was a Mr. Smitty Werbenjaegermannjensen (if you don't know where that's from, look up Markiplier on Youtube). I next looked him up on the Shadowrun-equivalent of Facebook, LinkedIn, the YellowPages, whatever it took, and then discovered his address.
Ragnarok and myself went to Smitty's house and knocked on his door, stating that we were from the phone company. Now before you read any further, keep in mind that this all started with him just minding his own business at home, not a worry or care in the world, and he was just answering questions for some guys from the phone company. Anyway, back to the story, he opened the door and after a few other questions let us in (I was also the party's face, so I was good at bluffing). We also heard his 7-year-old daughter in the next room. Now we -could- have just murdered the both of them and gone on our way, but we're better than that. Now, we had to get Smitty's commlink, but we soon discovered that it was embedded in his skull (not too uncommon in Shadowrun). We couldn't just pull the data off of it, we needed the actual device. Fortunately, I was also a former surgeon, so it was brain surgery time! (Yes my character really was a face/decker/semi-tank/medic. You would not believe the numeric gymnastics and gear choices I had to juggle to accomplish that). Ragnarok knocked him and his daughter out with a (harmless) tranquilizer dart, we put his daughter to bed, and then abducted poor Smitty back to my operating room. Oh, and we also stole his car while we were there.
After prepping Smitty for surgery, I successfully opened up his skull and removed the commlink, following up by closing up the hole and sewing it shut - a totally successful operation. Remember, this was still us being nice - I could have just used a power drill, lobotomized him, and gotten the commlink in all of 5 minutes. Now, I had some work to do on the commlink, but in all the rush, we had forgotten that Smitty had a wife. Upon realizing our mistake, which was just after the operation, we wondered how to satisfy Ms. Werben. After much debate, we settled on just texting her using Smitty's commlink, stating that he had been called into work and that he would not be home for several hours. We couldn't really tell if that had worked or not, but any additional attempts probably would just be met with more suspicion, so we left it at that.
Now that we had what we needed from Smitty, we weren't sure what to do with him. He would be out cold for another few hours, and we didn't want to just keep him tied up here during the run. We could've just killed him, but no, we were still above that. But that raised another issue - Smitty would certainly investigate what happened to him. Thankfully, I managed to come up with a solution for that in no time. I asked the GM for the name of a female orc hooker. I didn't care what it was, just the name of any random orc hooker. He gave me "Baby Triple G," so I wrote that name in pink lipstick on Smitty's ass and drew a kiss mark as well. I figured that after finding that, he wouldn't -want- to know what happened tonight. Of course, he was on his own when it came to explaining that to his wife. Anyway, we set him down in an alley a few blocks away with a light covering over him. Not sure what happened to him after that, but not our problem.
So to summarize, imagine that you hear a knocking at your door. Two guys from the phone company are outside, asking a few questions. They shake your hand. Next thing you know, it's 12 hours later and you're not at home, you're in an alley. Your head is shaved and you have a surgical scar there. You have a splitting headache because your cell phone/wallet was just surgically removed from your skull. Oh, and your cell phone/wallet is gone. You may or may not know who Baby Triple G is, but you probably spent a very wild night with her, and your wife is going to be very pissed about that. That probably also explains why your ass is so sore too (who knows what happened to him while he was out in that alley). Oh, and your car is stolen. All because you opened the door to talk to two guys from the phone company. Think about that for a bit.
---
Join me next time, as I relate the tale of our adventure in the high security building, and how we further ruined poor Smitty!
Poor Smitty...First, the setup. Our team consisted of Hannibal, a troll tank (absurdly high armor and muscles), Ragnarok, a demolitions/stealth specalist, an elf alchemist (magical grenades and traps), and myself, the elf decker/semi-tank (computer nerd with decent combat abilities and able to take a few hits). We had two others, but they were not available during the session that we ran the mission. Our goal for the mission: break into a heavily secured, 55-story government building with only a 4-man team that were all starting level and less than a day to do prep work. Sound insane? It should, because the module intended for us to ally ourselves with one or more other organizations to get professional assistance and vastly superior equipment. But you see, we couldn't do that.
We had a device in our possession that was the key to the whole thing - a pair of commlinks that each contained half of a file that, when combined, pointed out the location of a stash of evidence that will totally bring down the very corrupt governor of Seattle. The information was contained in the 10th floor server room of that very secure government building I mentioned above. Lots of corporations knew we had the commlinks, so they were offering us money to hand them over, like about $100k to $250k each. We also received an offer from an agent of the corrupt governor, offering us $400k to hand over the commlinks. Naturally, being the good shadowrunners that we are, we immediately started planning how we could get the $400k AND still get at the information stored in the government building. That meant that we would have to meet the government agent, hand over the commlinks, and then at the SAME TIME, or else very shortly after, successfully complete our raid on the building. Remember that we also had only 24 hours to plan and carry out the mission, and we were only at starting level. In other words, we had no time or money to get better gear or to do any kind of serious prep work.
The most frightening part was that, as the decker, it would be up to me to hack into the server and get the data off of it. And that was not going to be easy. I was a pretty good hacker, but this is a pretty serious place - at best, I would be evenly matched against each individual camera in the building, but it had a LOT of cameras and other security measures. Eventually, the dice would not be in my favor and we'd be caught. Plus the server itself was very tough, so I'd have to get very lucky several times in a row to successfully hack it. If at any time my hacking tools were destroyed during the run, which is a possibility in EVERY hacking attempt, that was it, game over. Suffice to say, I was not confident that the dice would be on my side for the entire run, so I needed an ace up my sleeve, and remember that I had less than 24 hours to find it.
After a good deal of reading through the rulebooks, and questioning the GM, I discovered that there was an IT guy that managed that particular server. All of the necessary credentials to get onto the server and into the building's security would be on that guy's commlink. I made a call to the building we were to infiltrate and pretended to be from the local power company. I said that we had noticed some strange fluctuations coming from a server in that building, and asked who managed the servers around the 10th floor. The receptionist responded that it was a Mr. Smitty Werbenjaegermannjensen (if you don't know where that's from, look up Markiplier on Youtube). I next looked him up on the Shadowrun-equivalent of Facebook, LinkedIn, the YellowPages, whatever it took, and then discovered his address.
Ragnarok and myself went to Smitty's house and knocked on his door, stating that we were from the phone company. Now before you read any further, keep in mind that this all started with him just minding his own business at home, not a worry or care in the world, and he was just answering questions for some guys from the phone company. Anyway, back to the story, he opened the door and after a few other questions let us in (I was also the party's face, so I was good at bluffing). We also heard his 7-year-old daughter in the next room. Now we -could- have just murdered the both of them and gone on our way, but we're better than that. Now, we had to get Smitty's commlink, but we soon discovered that it was embedded in his skull (not too uncommon in Shadowrun). We couldn't just pull the data off of it, we needed the actual device. Fortunately, I was also a former surgeon, so it was brain surgery time! (Yes my character really was a face/decker/semi-tank/medic. You would not believe the numeric gymnastics and gear choices I had to juggle to accomplish that). Ragnarok knocked him and his daughter out with a (harmless) tranquilizer dart, we put his daughter to bed, and then abducted poor Smitty back to my operating room. Oh, and we also stole his car while we were there.
After prepping Smitty for surgery, I successfully opened up his skull and removed the commlink, following up by closing up the hole and sewing it shut - a totally successful operation. Remember, this was still us being nice - I could have just used a power drill, lobotomized him, and gotten the commlink in all of 5 minutes. Now, I had some work to do on the commlink, but in all the rush, we had forgotten that Smitty had a wife. Upon realizing our mistake, which was just after the operation, we wondered how to satisfy Ms. Werben. After much debate, we settled on just texting her using Smitty's commlink, stating that he had been called into work and that he would not be home for several hours. We couldn't really tell if that had worked or not, but any additional attempts probably would just be met with more suspicion, so we left it at that.
Now that we had what we needed from Smitty, we weren't sure what to do with him. He would be out cold for another few hours, and we didn't want to just keep him tied up here during the run. We could've just killed him, but no, we were still above that. But that raised another issue - Smitty would certainly investigate what happened to him. Thankfully, I managed to come up with a solution for that in no time. I asked the GM for the name of a female orc hooker. I didn't care what it was, just the name of any random orc hooker. He gave me "Baby Triple G," so I wrote that name in pink lipstick on Smitty's ass and drew a kiss mark as well. I figured that after finding that, he wouldn't -want- to know what happened tonight. Of course, he was on his own when it came to explaining that to his wife. Anyway, we set him down in an alley a few blocks away with a light covering over him. Not sure what happened to him after that, but not our problem.
So to summarize, imagine that you hear a knocking at your door. Two guys from the phone company are outside, asking a few questions. They shake your hand. Next thing you know, it's 12 hours later and you're not at home, you're in an alley. Your head is shaved and you have a surgical scar there. You have a splitting headache because your cell phone/wallet was just surgically removed from your skull. Oh, and your cell phone/wallet is gone. You may or may not know who Baby Triple G is, but you probably spent a very wild night with her, and your wife is going to be very pissed about that. That probably also explains why your ass is so sore too (who knows what happened to him while he was out in that alley). Oh, and your car is stolen. All because you opened the door to talk to two guys from the phone company. Think about that for a bit.
---
Join me next time, as I relate the tale of our adventure in the high security building, and how we further ruined poor Smitty!
I won't spoil what is left, as Zelse is a better recap writer than I am, but the amount of crap they do at the expense of poor Mr. Jensen is appalling.