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[Shadowrun][GM discussion] Should eco-terrorists appear at an oil-rig under attack they are already being blamed (directly or indirectly) for hijacking? (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 months ago by INeedMana@lemmy.world to c/rpg@ttrpg.network

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I know that eventually the answer is "whatever I want" but I would like to hear what others think.

There's an MCT oil rig on Baltic Sea. Anarchists from Kronstadt noticed peculiar data transfer some time ago going there and managed to hijack the place. Then they transmitted message that they are an eco terrorist group (I did not specify which one to my players) and demand MCT to stop polluting. After that, folded the satellite dish to buy some time for the decker and rigger to look around the host.

Now, from a point of, for example, TerraFist. An oil rig nearby is in disarray, none of their contacts in other groups say they're doing it. And MCT HTR is definitely on its way.
Does it make sense for them to come to the rig and make contact/make sure it gets disabled/make trouble for HTR?

I think their appearance has potential to turn this job into a nice chaotic clusterfuck and opportunity to show my players some variety of the world (they would definitely come on a yacht going superspeed with help of a spirit).
But does it make any sense at all for anyone besides me?

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[–] Ziggurat@sh.itjust.works 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

To give you some thoughts (as I was telling you to post on a generic community, note that if I played some shadowrun v3 and a lot of cyberpunk 2020 a while ago, I am not a shadowrun guru)

My scenario-writing tip is to write down what happened, who is inlvolved, why and so on. Looks like you've done most of the work here. You know that some person are on corporate oil rid and want environmental activists to take the blame.

Based on that information, and on the fact that shadowrun is a cyberpunk game, and you need to keep the punk inside, meaning corpo are evil, environmental activists are the good guys (and never thrust a dragon). you don't want the environmental activists involved at first, you want the player to find out that it's a case between corpo where they find-out that the good guys are the victim. Letting more room for a moral dilemna for the PC. Do they want to let the world know the truth with the risk to get in trouble with the corpos an law. or do they want to protect themselves by repeating the narrative about bad environmental activists who are just eco-terrorists ?

[–] INeedMana@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Do they want to let the world know the truth with the risk to get in trouble with the corpos an law. or do they want to protect themselves by repeating the narrative about bad environmental activists who are just eco-terrorists ?

Oh, that would be great. But they were specifically ordered by Fixer (Lofwyr himself. But they don't know that yet and frankly the players themselves don't really know who that is - yet ;> ) to disable the rig in a way that the eco will be blamed for it. So far the world only knows the message the hijackers sent out.
Looking at how their cooperation has been going on, I don't expect my players to blink an eye. So I'm looking around for other things to spice runs out until I pull the rug

But that's a very good point, thank you :)

(btw, you marked your comment's language as French, so somehow I can see it only in my "mailbox")

[–] Ziggurat@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

(btw, you marked your comment’s language as French, so somehow I can see it only in my “mailbox”)

Oops put the wrong flag then, sorry for people using a screen reader. Interesting that it works here, because in some instances comments in a different language than the main thread are blocked

[–] INeedMana@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

I fixed this by choosing all languages in my settings. I think that's the default anyway

[–] Neato@ttrpg.network 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Depends. Is TerraFist ok with getting blamed and taking credit for acts not theirs? Some real world groups take credit for anything they can. And will TerraFist be ok with a shooting match with mtc and likely losing those operatives?

I think you last paragraph gives enough justification for them to show up just because you think it'll make your game better. And in most cases your players won't notice a slight inconsistency in ethos of that group.

It also kind of reminds me of the wacky plots of something like metal gear solid: "The eco terrorists aren't the ones who took over the oil trig after all? But then they showed up anyways? What the hell is going on?" Good times for all.

[–] INeedMana@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

will TerraFist be ok with a shooting match with mtc and likely losing those operatives?

I agree with Ziggurat that they should be the punk side of the setting. So underfunded good guys, who should rather go with "hit and run" modus operandi. Not a show of force like that.
Unless they really take orders from the Sea Dragon and the rucus grabbed her attention? Food for thought

“The eco terrorists aren’t the ones who took over the oil trig after all? But then they showed up anyways? What the hell is going on?"

Exactly what I had in mind ;)

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 2 points 8 months ago

The title of the post immediately made me think about Metal Gear Solid 2.

[–] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They can't destroy the oil rig, because that would just release a ton of oil. And if they disable it, it will be relatively easy to repair. What real terrorists would do is cause an accident or a malfunction, then murder or kidnap the responders.

(I went to EMT school and it's something they told us to be careful about, I swear I'm not a terrorist mister NSA man please don't gitmo me)

[–] INeedMana@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago

Yes, you're right. As a GM I'd accept my players simply blowing it up, because mimicking eco-terrorists' MO perfectly is not why they were given that heist. Fortunately they came to similar conclusion themselves and plan to break the drilling part