Running a Colombia d20 Modern campaign. The PCs are supposed to knock off the local crime lord/politically-motivated warlord. They have to do this carefully, since the last team that tried it got blown to hell. Something about a nearly inpenetrable base. They had to win the trust of the crime lord and then snatch him. Needless to say, the fewer people who knew their plans, the better.
Finally, they got their foot in the door, making contact with the warlord's chief of security (a madman who had high Sense Motive and a lie detector routine which included a Magnum .44). The warlord wanted them to eliminate a drug smuggler who paid off the wrong armed group for protection. It would have been easy if the smuggler didn't visit an area where the locals are so tough they operate their own road blocks and keep the warlords' troops out. (If they attacked him anywhere else, they would attacked by his bodyguards and the FARC. Who are the FARC?)
The PCs were hated by the FARC, a terrorist group that had an intense political rivalry with the warlord they were trying to befriend. To that end, they'd done everything to tick the FARC off, like foil many of their attacks, "sell" one of their towns to a rival terrorist group, and found their secret base and refused to die with that information safely within their skulls. The FARC likes to kidnap foreigners to Colombia, like the PCs.
When they first got to that area of Colombia, they witnessed the FARC kidnapping a drunken foreigner. (They tracked him to the FARC's secret base and rescued him.) They should have known that then what to avoid doing (being drunk).
During this session, the PCs got near the road block and decided to scout. One of the PCs, a gunslinger-type, pretended to be drunk and didn't hang around near the other PCs. So now the FARC, which knows their descriptions, hates them, and loves kidnapping drunk foreigners, sneaked up on him and jabbed him with knockout poison. Gunslingers don't have great Fort saves. Flop. They attempted to kidnap him.
There were only three FARC terrorists, and they weren't that bright either. The four conscious PCs quickly forced the FARC to surrender and rescued their friend in front of a crowd of Colombians. Then they lost their minds.
They decided a great way to sell one of the terrorists to the warlord (he would be delighted, and would torture the poor fellow, which was against the code of their employer), send one back (to deliver a message, eg "stop trying to kill us") and send one to the cops. But how to decide? They thought about Russian roulette (with kneecaps), but instead decided to stage an arena fight in a back alley. The three would fight each other; the winner got to go home, the loser would get sold to the warlord, and the in-betweener would go to jail. Naturally the prisoners were unarmed. And no, they weren't martial artists.
They did, however, attempt to escape instead of fighting each other. The PCs were weak on the melee side and no one had decent Strength. One of the prisoners nearly got away, but got shot down. That one, who did the best, ended up getting sent to the cops because one of the terrorists "had received a critical hit while standing above a PC he had just knocked over" and therefore required intensive masculinity-retention therapy (he was sent to the FARC base). The prisoner who didn't get anywhere was then sold to the warlord. This last act advanced their plan, but...
Was it really a good idea to deliver the terrorist to the cops? Or, for that matter, tick off their employers by setting up the arena (a form of torture, albeit mild) and then sell that guy to a madman who used a Magnum .44 to help detect lies?
The two terrorists who didn't get sold to the warlord complained. The PCs were arrested. Evidence was plentiful (eg witnesses). They had to spill to the chief of police*, had to reveal why they were in Colombia, which wasn't a great idea because of the influence the warlord wielded, and oh yeah, came this close to being fired. If they survive the next session, that's going to come back to haunt them.
* The PCs had two pieces of info to sell to the cops, but gave away the worse piece of info. If they'd told the cops about the secret prison operated by the foreign oil company, they'd have gotten off as well, but would have to free those prisoners. Instead, they panicked and spilled the big secret. The panic might have something to do with the thought of being sent to the capital via a big visible paddy wagon while unarmed and shackled down the only main road, a great signal for terrorists to blow them to smithereens with rocket launchers.
