Hmmm, stupid DMs. Most of ours are pretty good, thank diety. One guy tended to follow the sometimes written modules too closely.
One time in Shadowrun we were on a low-profile job, facilitating a corporate "resignation" (person wanted to leave the company but was under house arrest). We're in semi-stealthy mode, trying to blend in as best we could. The pickup is at a park in Seattle at winter. I'm the backup, a troll wearing hockey gear (customized security armor in a vague team color scheme) with my weapons in a gear bag.
Suddenly, a banshee armored vehicle appears behind us. For reference, a banshee is light hover tank, propelled by jet engines. It should cause ear damage at anything less than 50 yards and would be audible for miles and long seconds before it arrived since it isn't supersonic. We, heavily augmented individuals with "bionic" ears, had zero warning. And yes, it was airborne, not on landing wheels to roll up on us.
Fortunately, the dice mocked the DM mercilessly that session. He only managed to lightly maim the rest of the party before I could get in range. Everyone thought I was crazy for bringing an antivehicular weapon to the job but it was worth it (a custom heavy AV rifle grenade, propelled by my shotgun). I nearly crippled the Banshee when I shot it on the run (yahtzee of sixes). It turned and dropped a full burst on me but luck and the team karma pool were with me as I not only stayed on my feet but managed to drop another round on the banshee while scooping up the mage.
At this point it turned into a case of "overkill plot point" when an unknown van screamed up to help us escape. We took the chance and dove in and once we closed the door the sleepy gas was released and we were supposed to gently pass out.
Except I was in my security armor, equipped with chemseal, an independent air supply, filters, and a toxin detector so I was still conscious and active. Of course, the GM reasoned, what was I supposed to do? Fire the grenade inside the van? No, I pulled out the dikoted hockey stick/poleaxe from the gear bag and proceeded to cut through the floor of the van, taking out the transmission.
Which is when the Force 22 spirit manifested and put me to sleep. With pain. Lots of pain.
Same DM, same party, several sessions later. We're being hired to kidnap a college girl in Georgia who has apparently inherited a lot of money or something but doesn't know it yet. In Shadowrun, Seattle is in a different country than Georgia, and getting there requires crossing at least two different, intermediate countries. Thus, this is an international kidnapping job.
The pay is about 60,000Y. We counter with 60,000Y each (party of 6). The GM says absolutely not! We say fine, hire someone else. DM sputters, it's a cakewalk job! We sneer, making not-so-veiled comments about easy jobs and stealth banshees.
On a more rational tact, we point out that this job is essentially four life sentences waiting to happen, that we will have to spend quite a lot on decent IDs to get through international security or a double metric ton of bribes to be smuggled there and back, then we have to buy gear there or again pay a ton of bribes to get our weapons through customs. So, given the expenses to be incurred and the risks getting across all those borders with a kidnap-ee, we wanted a buttload of money.
The DM makes one last gasp of "but this is the module I had to run! What will we do otherwise?" The group looks at each other in amusement. The same group has multiple campaigns in progress with different DMs; one of us ran a homebrew D&D, another starjammer, the third liked Dragonlance and another one ran our Vampire game. We all lived in the dorm so it was 5 minutes effort to switch games.
The DM began to pout. I suggested (reasonably, I thought) that perhaps he could just have her be located, say in the south end of seattle and leave the rest alone and then 60k would be a reasonable price for the effort. Apparently it was vital that we cross international borders with an unwilling person, so he relented on the cash and said, I quote, "get her here however you want as long as she's alive and in good health."
We knew it was another double cross mission so we came up with our own double-cross. We had one good favor from a high muckety-muck that we cashed in for decent IDs that declared us to be off-duty air marshalls. The muckety-muck was no friend so we were fine with using a bit of magic to wipe his memory of the event on our way out so he wouldn't cancel the IDs.
We hopped a semi-ballistic to Georgia and rented a nice car, put on our Sunday-meeting suits, and went to the girls house where we told her that she was inheriting a crapload of money, would need to sign for it in Seattle, please pack a bag of nice things, and we were her bodyguards for the duration and if she was pleased with the service we'd be happy to stay on as her permanent security staff but we'd understand if she wanted to make an independent selection.
The DM was so flummoxed and suprised that he couldn't figure out a reason why she'd freak out. The fact the party made their skill checks, weren't in a hurry, and suggested things like stopping at a store for to buy a jacket for Seattle weather kept him from implying she thought it was a kidnapping.
We hustled her back in no time flat (yay, semi-ballistic rocket) and basically outran the double-cross. No idea what horrible thing was supposed to happen but the DM was extra pouty for quite some time.
