My D20 Modern GM has presented us with a seemingly lose-lose situation, but claims there are ways out of it we just aren't seeing, so I thought someone here might be able to help us out with a brilliant idea. The PCs are all 15th level in an Urban Arcana campaign:
- Matthew, Battlemind (Me)
- Sam, Arcane Arranger with a few Mage levels
- Kurtis, Mystic, as well as some combat Avanced Class I can't think of.
- Tim, Infiltrator and Shadow Chaser (or maybe it's Shadow Hunter)
We're all paranormal private investigators in Montreal in 2008. We also have the backing of a government-run organization handling all things paranormal named Department 47. They unfortunately have limited resources (whether it be funds, people or magic) and as a result we are their go-to people in the city. This was the very first session of both Tim the character and Tim's player. We had just finished introducing him as a new employee when a man enters our office. He makes it clear that he knows a lot about us and our loved ones (parents, friends, girlfriends). He works for a Mr. Ishimura, who wants us to accomplish 3 tasks, the first of which is to steal something from a military supplier. If we do not, the people we care about are all in danger. He also makes it clear that he's but a lawyer, unimportant in the grand scheme of things, and nothing can be gained from attacking him. Seething with rage, we ask for an hour to think about it.
The first thing we do is find out what we can about Mr. Ishimura, but come up short. Sam, on the phone with his contacts, rolls a Gather Information of 45, but still finds nothing. Department 47 hasn't heard of him, and neither have our Montreal Triad contacts (from a recent mob war). Assuming our loved ones may already be under surveillance, and that our office might be bugged, we don't call to warn them. Finally, we decide to go along with it until we can find a way out. When the lawyer comes back, however, he brings insurance: the severed pinky finger of our NPC secretary/journalist who had gone out to get coffee before the lawyer showed up the first time. They have her, and will cut off more parts if we don't play along, or even if we play along and fail.
He then shows us a video of what he wants us to steal: experimental body armor that is barely heavier than spandex, but can withstand a point blank shotgun blast, enhance the user's strength, is impervious to fire, and so on. We get a location and a 72 hour deadline. Kurtis has a Discern Lies ability, which allows for Sense Motive checks to know if someone is lying, so we know the lawyer's been nothing but truthful.
And then it goes from bad to worse. One of Sam's main contacts is the head of Lawson Industries, a company with more power than Microsoft. Mr. Lawson has always seemed like a good guy, he even provided some funding to hire new employees, but you get the impression Lawson Industries has their hands in everything. Sam informs Lawson of the situation, and finds out Ishimura wants us to steal from one of Lawson's facilities. We later have a friendly meeting with Lawson, where he informs us that security at his facility has been beefed up, the mole who had access to the armor testing footage has been caught but doesn't know who he was working for, and there's no way he's lending us the armor. He can, however, have replicas made for us, but Ishimura seems smart enough to have the authenticity of the armor tested at the drop-off, and such a test shouldn't be hard at all. He suggests we accept the loss of our employee to show Ishimura and everyone other evil organization that we don't bow down to such tactics.
So basically if we still wanted to steal the armor, it's now much more difficult, potentially impossible. And anyway if Lawson found the armor missing, who would he suspect? An NPC has suggested we go for the armor and while we're there frame someone else, but both Sam and I feel stealing the armor is no longer a reasonable course of action.
Thus, the question is, how can we save our NPC employee before she loses more body parts, take down Ishimura and his goons, and avoid making an enemy out of Lawson?
The best course of action we've thought of, which is still incredibly likely to fail, is to have replicas made with trackers, and test the armor ourselves before giving it to them, basically "faking it" and such. Then we play it by ear. Also, from his Mystic levels, Kurtis has a Command Humans ability, but its usefulness depends on how many bad guys are at the drop-off. We're all in favor of kicking in the door and busting heads, but we just don't know what door to kick in. As a player, I utterly despise such storylines where some BBEG has so much power the PCs have little choice but to play along. It just isn't fun to be controlled like this, so partially as a form of out-of-game protest, I had the idea of just going to the cops with our situation. Basically, make our problem their problem. They have way more manpower, after all.
And on a final note, the GM hinted that we have contacts we haven't thought of that can help us out. Certainly not me, but the other PCs have a bunch of which I'm not all aware. So anyone who suggests a course of action for us can assume we have any sort of contact.
Here, though, our are main contacts I can think of that I haven't already mentioned:
- Sam's girlfriend has recently become head of the Montreal Mafia. She's a good character who wants nothing to do with it, but instead of just stepping down is currently consolidating power in order to take the mob in a friendlier direction.
- Occult bookstore owner that provides for all our occult knowledge needs.
- Underground tech specialist for all our gizmo and gadget needs.
- Fortune teller for when we need healing.
- A department 47 agent we've worked with often, in case we need one extra person.
- A detective at the police department who I believe owes us a favor.
- A Yuan-Ti cult doing everything they can to summon their snake gods in order to take over the world. We've currently got a truce set up with them, because we like being alive.
- An intelligent undead of unkown type, but he looks like a zombie. He handles all of our office's finances.
Can anyone see a way out of this mess? Thanks in advance.
- Matthew, Battlemind (Me)
- Sam, Arcane Arranger with a few Mage levels
- Kurtis, Mystic, as well as some combat Avanced Class I can't think of.
- Tim, Infiltrator and Shadow Chaser (or maybe it's Shadow Hunter)
We're all paranormal private investigators in Montreal in 2008. We also have the backing of a government-run organization handling all things paranormal named Department 47. They unfortunately have limited resources (whether it be funds, people or magic) and as a result we are their go-to people in the city. This was the very first session of both Tim the character and Tim's player. We had just finished introducing him as a new employee when a man enters our office. He makes it clear that he knows a lot about us and our loved ones (parents, friends, girlfriends). He works for a Mr. Ishimura, who wants us to accomplish 3 tasks, the first of which is to steal something from a military supplier. If we do not, the people we care about are all in danger. He also makes it clear that he's but a lawyer, unimportant in the grand scheme of things, and nothing can be gained from attacking him. Seething with rage, we ask for an hour to think about it.
The first thing we do is find out what we can about Mr. Ishimura, but come up short. Sam, on the phone with his contacts, rolls a Gather Information of 45, but still finds nothing. Department 47 hasn't heard of him, and neither have our Montreal Triad contacts (from a recent mob war). Assuming our loved ones may already be under surveillance, and that our office might be bugged, we don't call to warn them. Finally, we decide to go along with it until we can find a way out. When the lawyer comes back, however, he brings insurance: the severed pinky finger of our NPC secretary/journalist who had gone out to get coffee before the lawyer showed up the first time. They have her, and will cut off more parts if we don't play along, or even if we play along and fail.
He then shows us a video of what he wants us to steal: experimental body armor that is barely heavier than spandex, but can withstand a point blank shotgun blast, enhance the user's strength, is impervious to fire, and so on. We get a location and a 72 hour deadline. Kurtis has a Discern Lies ability, which allows for Sense Motive checks to know if someone is lying, so we know the lawyer's been nothing but truthful.
And then it goes from bad to worse. One of Sam's main contacts is the head of Lawson Industries, a company with more power than Microsoft. Mr. Lawson has always seemed like a good guy, he even provided some funding to hire new employees, but you get the impression Lawson Industries has their hands in everything. Sam informs Lawson of the situation, and finds out Ishimura wants us to steal from one of Lawson's facilities. We later have a friendly meeting with Lawson, where he informs us that security at his facility has been beefed up, the mole who had access to the armor testing footage has been caught but doesn't know who he was working for, and there's no way he's lending us the armor. He can, however, have replicas made for us, but Ishimura seems smart enough to have the authenticity of the armor tested at the drop-off, and such a test shouldn't be hard at all. He suggests we accept the loss of our employee to show Ishimura and everyone other evil organization that we don't bow down to such tactics.
So basically if we still wanted to steal the armor, it's now much more difficult, potentially impossible. And anyway if Lawson found the armor missing, who would he suspect? An NPC has suggested we go for the armor and while we're there frame someone else, but both Sam and I feel stealing the armor is no longer a reasonable course of action.
Thus, the question is, how can we save our NPC employee before she loses more body parts, take down Ishimura and his goons, and avoid making an enemy out of Lawson?
The best course of action we've thought of, which is still incredibly likely to fail, is to have replicas made with trackers, and test the armor ourselves before giving it to them, basically "faking it" and such. Then we play it by ear. Also, from his Mystic levels, Kurtis has a Command Humans ability, but its usefulness depends on how many bad guys are at the drop-off. We're all in favor of kicking in the door and busting heads, but we just don't know what door to kick in. As a player, I utterly despise such storylines where some BBEG has so much power the PCs have little choice but to play along. It just isn't fun to be controlled like this, so partially as a form of out-of-game protest, I had the idea of just going to the cops with our situation. Basically, make our problem their problem. They have way more manpower, after all.
And on a final note, the GM hinted that we have contacts we haven't thought of that can help us out. Certainly not me, but the other PCs have a bunch of which I'm not all aware. So anyone who suggests a course of action for us can assume we have any sort of contact.
Here, though, our are main contacts I can think of that I haven't already mentioned:
- Sam's girlfriend has recently become head of the Montreal Mafia. She's a good character who wants nothing to do with it, but instead of just stepping down is currently consolidating power in order to take the mob in a friendlier direction.
- Occult bookstore owner that provides for all our occult knowledge needs.
- Underground tech specialist for all our gizmo and gadget needs.
- Fortune teller for when we need healing.
- A department 47 agent we've worked with often, in case we need one extra person.
- A detective at the police department who I believe owes us a favor.
- A Yuan-Ti cult doing everything they can to summon their snake gods in order to take over the world. We've currently got a truce set up with them, because we like being alive.
- An intelligent undead of unkown type, but he looks like a zombie. He handles all of our office's finances.
Can anyone see a way out of this mess? Thanks in advance.
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