Calling all Chaos Gremlins

[NineStarPhantom]

Welcome Friends! Welcome! (Or not, as you see fit. And none of you orderly folks aroun' here!)

I recently began a new game with a new group, and in our second session, upon discovering our characters captured and imprisoned (Though we got out pretty easily) We promptly planned to retrieve our things and then embed ourselves within the walls to cause headaches for the facility, sabotage everything, declare phycological war, and just generally make nuisances of ourselves. this was then begun with the party gnome climbing into the air vents while my own character hacked the robots in the security system.

 

Thus began the seed for this question: What Beautiful, Terrible Chaos have you or a fellow player created, and if you had the ability, what madness have you theorized, yet not unleashed?

Edited December 4, 2023 by NineStarPhantom
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[Yamazaki]

In my early days in the hobby, I had two separate jailbreak stories. But only one is really worth telling.

Jailbreak

A bit of backstory here: I was replacing the player of the party's thief in a game of Earthdawn (the previous player was going to be away for months thanks to work). I had been playing with this group, off-n-on for a couple years now, but it was the first time I played with this specific person as the GM. He had a particular house rule that leveling up involved actual training, and typically you had to find someone to train you up.

This led to me, a thief, trying to find a better thief to train me. This was a massive challenge for the newbie I was, because I was still a relentlessly socially awkward dork who still hadn't gotten the hang of people or roleplaying, and this GM had zero mercy for my awkwardness. In fact, to this day, I believe that he thought he was doing me a favor by pushing me...

Anyhow, my thief ends up putzing around town, the spotlight coming back to me every so often as my character meaders trying to wrack my brain to find a solution (one that my GM had no intention to really point me in the right direction), but eventually I found my way to a seedy bar. Tried to talk up the bartender to find a local thief, and he gives me directions, and tells me to slap some coin onto the counter and ask for their best thief.

So I do just that - I follow the direction, wade right into the building, slap some coins onto the counter, and ask for their best thief. The GM, being the jerk, neglected to tell me that I had just walked into the city guard's HQ and demanded their best thief. Thus, I found myself in jail... Which I promptedly decided that I would not stay the night.

Within an hour or so, I pick the lock to my manacles. My cellmate started haranging me to free him too, and after a bit of quick thinking when a guard came to check up on the noise, I ended up freeing him too. And then pretty much everyone on that wing of the jail. Eventually, the guards check up, and discover a butt-load of prisoners out of their cells, who rush the door.

While I blame the GM for being a jerk and putting me into this situation, this part is all on me. See, I could've just used the chaos I had created to escape. That would've been a fantastic idea, but instead, I beeline for the armory to find my gear... and to steal anything worthwhile as well. Eventually, a clerk trying to escape the chaos finds me, and I opt to make a break for it.

However, with my hands full of stolen gear, the guards were quick to catch up and capture me again. That night, the captain orders that my fingers on my primary hand be cut off past the first knuckle as punishment, since I did free a bunch of people. After the party finally found me and paid my bail, it would be a week later that an infection would form, and my hand would be cut off because of a botched medicine check.

Years later, when I became the forever GM for my group of casual manslaughter vagrants, we had a few great stories that were pure chaos.

The Shadowrun Session Where they Burned Down a McDonalds

The group's entry point into Shadowrun was a module from the SR5e starter box, which was called Food Fight but actually isn't the famous Stuffer Shack shootout. The job was simple enough: Local mob crew had kidnapped a store-owner's daughter because he wasn't paying up the rising protection costs, so the PCs are hired to rescue her. This specific crew uses a totally-not-McDonalds restaurant as a front, and many on the crew work there.

In this case, my players, who are loading up on beer already, head for the burger joint. Once they arrive, they quickly decide that the front door is too much of a problem, and check the back door, which leads right into the office (I did not think about this very much at the moment, I admit). There, the boss is at the desk, who whips around pulling his revolver and demands who they are.

In quick order, initiative is rolled and the following occurs:

Action 1: Adept punches the guy in the face

Action 2: Street Sam pulls cyberspurs and stabs the guy in the leg

Action 3: technomancer (dear chaos why did I allow a techno for my first game?) pulls his gun and shoots him right in the face

 

Meanwhile, my wife's incredibly mundane raised-by-actual-wolves not-street-samthis, folks, is why I cannot rely on anyone in my live group to provide me backstories...

Also when I learned that my wife hates cyberpunk "Because it's too much like the Matrix". heads for the door out of the office and cuts off reinforcements. The techno then tries to hack the turrets in the dining area, a bit of mechanics that takes us 20 minutes to resolve because I hadn't quite learned the rulesfurther souring my wife's thoughts on cyberpunk, and on Shadowrun as a whole. She still brings it up from time to time if the topic gets anywhere near it., and fires a burst into open air to scare off customers. Eventually, the mob crew is all killed off, they find the girl, and then set the whole place on fire before the cops show up to destroy any evidence of them being there.

 

Years later, I'd re-run this module, using Runners in the Shadows, with a few members of the group plus a new one. It was far less destructive, and surprisingly enough, none of the mob were killed (but most got beat up). Which also taught me that I can reuse adventure ideas and they won't know it LOL

That Session of Shadowrun involving Hacking a Forklift, a Grenade Launcher, and Novacoke

For a summer, we had some major scheduling concerns, so this session was only 2 players - the demolition expert and the hacker. I had a pretty good handle on the rules by this point, and understood enough about handwaving that I could get around more annoying aspects (like bouncing explosions).

The job was very very simple: a warehouse had become the hangout for a group of gangers selling drugs out of it. Just far enough from the beaten path that the cops didn't care enough to deal with it, but close enough that the Johnson wanted to get it back, mostly to sell it off.

The PCs go do their legwork, getting a general estimate of their numbers, including one mage, and even tried to talk to them. But not in a 'find somewhere better to hang out' kinda talk, but a 'lets buy drugs' talk.

The next morning, they do the novacoke they bought, roll up on their motorcycles, hack the forklift in the warehouse and use it to impale the mage, hack open the main loading bay, then open fire with SMGs and a grenade launcher. Then stole their drugs before the cops swung by because EXPLOSIONS.

Johnson wasn't happy, because EXPLOSIONS. But they had a boatload of drugs they could pawn off, if they could find a buyer LOL

This was actually the session that I finally learned to embrace the chaos, and just roll with it. Sadly, we moved on from SR proper shortly thereafter, as I had to work out of town for a few months and we never quite came back to it.

 

I got a few more stories to share, but I think I'll leave it at that for now. It got kinda long anyhow LOL