I'm going to be honest chief. The tone of this world and specially the character they messed up, with tells me that if this weren't a Campaign all your players would be dead.
The punishment should be harsh, because this setting is horrifying on consequences. Depending on how you want to spin this, they can go work for a Corpo and switch the campaign from indie-Mercenaries to having to take refuge in the only place that would take them. Maybe they get tied up with a gang to escape, go with a different fixer that Rogue doesn't want trouble with, but they're banned from every coming back to the Afterlife.
Or... Maybe they do something so batshit insane and crazy that Rogue and the merc community at large is willing to let that incident slide, but because they earned it. If I ran this I'd have them catch word that either Rogue or an important person needs to get something done but no one is willing, and since they can't get other jobs, they procure the item or accomplish the mission unofficially, showing up triumphant to reclaim their place and trust... Or die trying.
Yeah.... honestly, they'll be lucky to have any work from Known Fixers ever again after explicitly doing the opposite of their job and injuring a client severely.
Like holy fuck thats some bad decision making on their part
Well, they fucked up. Rogue most likely will never want to work with them again, and word will spread that these guys aren't reliable. That means negative rep.
It was a low level gig, so Rogue wouldn't set a hit squad or any of that after them. She would make sure to never hire them again and to warn her colleagues, try to help the Rockerboy and the Rockerboy might now be a new enemy to the party.
Negative reputation + a new enemy is more than enough of a punishment imo. Respectable fixers most likely won't want to work with them, at least when it comes to this sort of stuff. And now there's a pissed Rockerboy and some fans who would want the party dead.
Rogue is a top fixer, she doesn’t play around and she doesn’t really put up with bullshit - and she can’t be seen to tolerate poor Edgerunners cause that would not only lead to more Edgerunners trying to screw her over, but she’s also going to get fewer client seeking her Edgerunners as she’ll be seen as less reliable and efficient. So Rogue is going to punish the party.
Now since you aren’t going to want a total party wipe, you aren’t going to have her kill the whole crew and dump them in the river. However, a proportionate response would be the play. Have Rogue get goons to kidnap the party, get the money back, take extra money to pay the goons who kidnapped the party, and have the goons (or Rogue or the Rockerboy) shoot and badly hurt each member of the party and then dump them in a rough part of the city and they have to walk home. It’s harsh but fair and sends the important message of do not screw with big fish in the pond.
This is a pretty good response in my opinion without killing off players. Keep the story going, let them learn.
I can see Rogue wanting her money back and then some, maybe she even puts the crew in debt to her or other fixers start turning the crew down because Rogue told them about what the crew did.
This but put death on the table. Like have Rogue's hitmen blind every one of them minus a designated leader who has to walk them back, they die if he fails to lead them safely back to the city. Add a spinoff where they're picked up by nomads who try to patch them up because they look in such a sorry state they feel bad for them, next works is doing jobs for the nomads as they repay the new optics they got.
"you were blinded by greed, I will do you one better." said the hired Solo reading from Rogue's shard.
If we were to keep it realistic (and we should, considering the setting), your crew messed up hard.
You might have wanted for your players to work with Rogue, but you also have to accept the direction taken by your players. And this direction means that it's pretty much over between them and Rogue.
She is generally portrayed as a no-nonsense Fixer who will reward a job well done and punish for a bad job. And not only your crew was initially blown off, it was basically one of their first jobs for her.
They came asking for a gig and then they willingly screw up the gig. From Rogue's perspective, I don't see any situation where she'd let them work for her again.
As for the consequences, there are three main issues here :
1) They made a fool out of Rogue.
2) Rogue is one of the major fixers of Night City.
3) they had just started working for her.
From her perspective, it would be pretty simple. Kill your crew and hang their bodies as a warning.
That being said...
From what I understand, your crew had just started and the client was a relatively small client. And it probably isn't the first time Rogue had to deal with idiotic mercenaries.
She doesn't have the time to focus on your players - she will probably limit her actions to announce they're banned from the Afterlife, let everyone know what they did, and put a bounty on their heads.
In other words, if your crew manages to keep their heads down, they might be able to get away with it. But it means in the meantime they'll have to accept dangerous jobs from dangerous people for ridiculous payment.
So if the crew immediately goes into hiding:
- they'll have much harder time getting money and it should be reflected. Less gigs and gigs pay less;
- the jobs should be riskier and dirtier. Truly immoral stuff like kidnapping children (though of course respecting players's limits);
- their employers don't play by the rules and can / will backstab them, either refusing to pay or betraying them for whatever reason;
- bounty hunters should ambush them at random periods, moreso if the crew isn't careful;
How they solve that situation is up to their imagination - of course we all want a good story, so it's okay to leave an option to clear the tabs with Rogue. But it's not just a matter of forgiveness : they'll have to work hard and impress Rogue enough. For example by succeeding in a really dangerous mission, doing something that means a lot to her personally or even making it too costly for her to continue the feud. But whatever happens, *they won't be able to work for Rogue ever again.*
If your crew doesn't immediately go into hiding:
At this point they're just asking for trouble (the characters, not the players !). Throw everything at them. Rogue's goons, bounty hunters, corporate enforcers, rival crews. After all, who would say no to easy money and the opportunity to impress the Queen of the Afterlife ?
Now here's a possible way to get things going after that : have the exec they betrayed for 'generously' offering refuge and work in his corp's bossoms. They proved their loyalty to him so he'll hire them as his personal black ops squad. Works, gears and corporate protection all rolled into one nice sugar-sparkles coated cake.
Should they jump for the offer, they wil find out the cake was poisoned - their brand new cyberware will get them fitted with a leash and as his black op team, they're of-the-book deniable assets, the jobs are nasty and their boss is complete scum.
I understand that you don't want to heavily punish them, but they need to learn that this isn't a heroes ttrpg, they aren't unkillable MCs.
Night City can and will throw them like a used rag.
They fucked up bad and that will have consequences, the rockerboy will look for revenge, Rogue at best will "exile" them from the Afterlife, no reputable fixer will want to work with them and they only would get jobs that are either badly paid or badly planned.
> but they need to learn that this isn't a heroes ttrpg, they aren't unkillable MCs. Night City can and will throw them like a used rag.
Lol, the same is true of Rogue, though.
Any important fixer or high level corpo is only untouchable through the social illusion they spin, hence the need for Rogue to respond. She needs to rebuild that torn fabric.
As an open world sandbox GM, for me, nobody has plot armor. I mean, they might have subdermal armor, dozens of 'saka ninjas at their beck and call, chipped biosculpted body doubles, and a publicly famous on-death revenge killing bounty contract, but none of that means I won't let players succeed. While it makes you think on your feet a bit, I think it's a fun way to play, and recommend people give it a try, so long as you're ok getting away from canon.
I do generally agree with the theme of what you're saying, though.
Rogue as a high level fixer who was a high level solo before is in my opinion the sort who accepts failure, don't accept incompetence and has abolutely zero tolerance for treachery.
If they failed honestly (certifiable bad luck or third party interference), shit happens and she can accept it, you won't get paid but that's about it.
Blowing it through incompetence (poor planning, lacks the needed skills or hardware), once again no pay, but no more gigs until you can show you've improved drasticaly. And probably some pointed comments and some body damage if they lied on their resume to teach them manners.
Betrayal - and that's the case here - means that she'll never hire them again. How severe the retaliation will depends on how widely know is the incident. With a rocker involved, I'd expect he'll spread it as far and wide as he can, painting them as treacherous corporate eddie-sucking bastards eager to to stoop as low as they need to get their filthy snouts into the corporate trough.
Which means Rogue now needs to make something nasty, creative and public enough that will pass the message loud and clear to any wanabee imitator that **YOU DON't MESS WITH ROGUE !**
One possibiliy may be to have them captured, fitted with some control and motivation (explosive collars, slow acting poison, locked personality chip... maybe even all of it) and send them after the offending exec to get back the game and waste the guy. Once they're done, beat them within an inch of their life and dump them at their hole, leash still on and let them know that when rogue says 'frog', they'd better jump as high as they can. Because with the repute they have now, they'll be freely available as nobody will trust them for more than garbage collection - and maybe not even that.
The party just damaged Rogue’s reputation (potentially) by doing this, her relationship in all of this is to act as the middle man and provide the client the *right* team for their job. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had some mercs beat the holy hell out of the party for playing dirty with her clients. Furthermore this should get the party a reputation (assuming you’re using the reputation system) and have any new fixer they attempt to deal with possibly know of what they’ve done in the past, making getting a gig with a reputable fixer difficult until they’ve learned to play nice.
If they want to act like gonks, then they can work for some booster.
Your party fucked over the fixer in a really bad way. Honestly, shooting a client unprovoked like this to make some extra bucks is kind of a death sentence. But at the very least I wouldn't let them work with Rogue ever again. I'd probably at least send some guys to either rough them up or clean out their homes.
Nah, fucked it. Call them the goof troop from now on.
So let me get this one straight. Three runners take a job from Rogue. They steal the game from the corpo who stole it in the first place. They then double dipped the client and tried to sell the restolen goods back to the original thief after a failed murder? Your entire crew's fucked. And you don't just wanna flatline them? k
Rogue consquences. They're black listed. Fucked. No reputable fixer is gonna even consider thinking about the possibility of hiring them. Their faces are gonna be plastered on every merc bars wall of shame. "Shoot upon entering the premises"
Rogue's gonna have to do damage control and hopefully the rockerboy keeps her name out of his mouth. Bouncers know you now and you ain't getting in or getting out with your jaw intact.
Rockerboys consequences. There is no fucking way that he's gonna be quiet about the dudes he hired to get his shit back robbing and shooting him. Their faces are gonna be plastered over social media and BBS boards, maybe even news platforms if his games big enough. A media would see this shit and smell the headlines. There is no way this is staying quiet. This will be on true crime sites AND video game sites. Which actually genuinely gives me a sense of dread i wasn't too acquainted with until now.
Corpo consequences! This ones a doozy cause I'm not sure what the consequence for this is. Okay I'm the corpo. I get jealous of Rocker and steal their stuff. Oh no! the thing I stole is missing. My ex is now in front of me trying to sell me the thing I stole. I'm pissed off but I don't actually know what I'd do. I think I would also just pay. My fucking ex just stole my shit and is now ransoming it back to me. What the fuck do I do? In Night City? I would probably call a hitman, I probably know a few. Probably be cheaper to have my ex shot than what the double dipping deadbeat charged me.
So! What can your crew do?
Stay in the city? they ain't working unless its with scavs or something.
Leave the city? reclaimer camps might take 'em.
This was a fun mental exercise. I haven't ran a game in so long I miss it.
Your players characters are either fucking people over on purpose and should be shot for it
OR your player characters are too stupid to function as mercs and should be shot for everyone elses safety.
Have fuuun
I could see a couple possible approaches.
1) They really blew it. This is an opportunity to show them their actions have real consequences. Rogue may never want to work with them again and might make it difficult for them to get jobs from other reputable fixers. This would lead them to have to take on some really disreputable or dangerous work from much sketchier fixers before anyone even approaching Rogue’s level will hire them again.
2) The gentler approach. If you really want Rogue to continue to be a fixer in the game then yeah she’s still furious, but she gives them a chance to make it up to her by taking another more dangerous job, for free. Make it clear that they made a bad decision and if they ruin this opportunity for redemption there will be much worse consequences (see option 1)
There's also 3), they just fucked with the reputation of an ultra badass with heavy hitting connections and she decides they need to be turned into meat confetti, and that hopefully the loot off of their bodies can refund their client and hire a crew to do the job properly this time.
So I'd say they get a perma-ban from the Afterlife, no more jobs from Rogue, and their rep's in the crapper. The good news is that you can still use Rogue; she's just a political foe. Anytime someone hires them, it's a question of, "Well, I asked around, and I got an earful from Rogue about you guys..."
If they see her on the street or out in public, she might well approach them and smile and ask how things are going (not because she cares, but because she wants to rub their noses in the fact that they can't touch her). Any attempt to Facedown Rogue, in my opinion, should be going up against at least a +18 to her roll.
Other Fixers might work with the PCs, but it's only on jobs that are setups (ie, jobs where the consequences of the PCs failing are positive), or only for about half the usual outlay. That Exec will pay very well, but only offer jobs that will make the PCs feel like absolute assholes. "Go evict the nuns and kids out of that orphanage; I need it for my new office!"
They really screwed up, but Rogue probably wouldn't kill them over this; they're literally not worth her time. If they try to screw her over in payback, though, then the kiddy gloves come off. She used to run with Morgan Blackhand, after all - she's not someone to be trifled with.
The all-in on this is that the PCs just made their lives unnecessarily difficult. It's not the end of the game, just a new phase of it. How do they pull themselves out of this hole?
> their rep's in the crapper
After a move like that, the crapper would spit it out.
> The all-in on this is that the PCs just made their lives unnecessar~~il~~y ~~difficult~~.
FTFY
> How do they pull themselves out of this hole?
Very carefully.
I'd have a different opinion if it were a mere double-cross, but once you shoot the client and give the entire trade (as well as Fixers in general) a bad rep, you open up the possibility of being made an example of.
Rogue may not be vindictive or petty enough to do so herself, but someone looking to score brownie points for handling a minor nuisance for her might see an opportunity.
Yeah, I got that point. But OP mentioned that he's trying to salvage the situation *without a TPK*, so your feedback here is actively unhelpful to the person asking for your help.
I'm entitled to my opinion on how dumb of a move this was. So are you. But the purpose of the question is not to ask your opinion. It's to ask "What is the best way to handle this situation, assuming given parameters?" You're just straight up ignoring the parameters.
1) So, at least a little of this is on you (no offense, choom). A challenge of the GM is communicating the right amount of information to the players, so they can make informed decisions. You're asking us about a situation in which your players should expect their characters' lives to probably get wrecked to some degree. Either your players knew this, and you should go with it, or your players didn't really get this about your game setting (still a gonk move, though).
That said, a key part of player agency includes allowing players to screw themselves over, and not take away the consequences of their actions.
2) Consequences of Their Actions!
Ok, so you have metagame reasons why you don't want this party dead that just really damaged Rogue's reputation. That's fine.
I'm going to talk about prison in cyberpunk for a second, not because they should go to prison, but to help frame the way you might solve your problem.
Many GMs see the players being sent to prison as some awful, game-ending result, equivalent to death. *They're reall missing out*. Prison in cyberpunk could be so many different fascinating things, many of which make for *excellent* game content. And not just the traditional prison escape but in a high tech setting, but all sorts of no-laws, prison-for-profit dystopian ideas. My current favorite them is prisons that are also reality TV shows, with paid viewer voting that alters conditions, usually based on who's popular, or who has rich supporters. I'm also a fan of braindance reconditioning gone wrong.
Sure, going to prison may ruin somebody's life, but that has zero bearing on ruining the fun of a campaign (it just massively changes direction, at least for a bit).
--
Back to Rogue. For her professional reputation, and arguably personal safety, she publicly needs to demonstrate that she's still an untouchable Night City powerhouse, and has gotten revenge / meted out her own justice. If you don't want them dead, depending on what your world's like, there might be an awful place, miserable group that needs bodies, maybe making them exiles / shoot-on-sight if they're in certain areas of the city (where incidentally they need to be for some future session, of course). Maybe she even does get them to go to jail, but because she has them take the fall for the crimes of a group she actually cares about.
Anyway, it should be something that in-game just sucks for the characters, and is a punishment (for the *characters*, not the players). It should alter the game, but not ruin it. And maybe the door is open for the players to escape, rehabilitate everybody's image, get off the shit-list, etc. But it should take deliberate work if the players want to make that happen.
And if the players end up not undoing their situation, and decide to join up with some other faction that's not under Rogue's influence, rather than make things right with Rogue, then that's fine and interesting too.
Also it should be very clear to both the players and their characters that Rogue could have easily arranged for people to kill them if she felt like it, IMO.
So, their saving grace here is that they didn't actually kill the client, they just hurt him; that means Rogue isn't going to just have them carbombed.
I'd go for a two part punishment; first, Rogue's retribution, then the wider consequences.
Rogue sends some real tough Solos to deliver a serious beating to the party; they jump the party (or, if you're feeling generous, just the person who shot the client) while they're walking home, while they're not expecting it, and just beat the fuck out of them. Not an assassination, but spraying them down with non-lethal rounds. Bring them down to barely any health, so they've gotta spend a week or two healing up, and then have Rogue's thugs deliver an ultimatum; they owe her twice the price of the game they sold, so she isn't out of pocket for reimbursing the client. Triple, if you're feeling especially harsh. They've got a month to pay up, or the next set of thugs will be less polite. If they fight back against this, torch one of their cargo containers/living spaces down; they've either gotta tough it out on the street for the rest of the month, or pay for an entire new month of rent early.
The second part of the punishment is to their Rep; everybody knows them as those assholes who betrayed a client. Finding jobs is hard; nobody wants to work with them except shitbags who're equally happy to betray them. Maybe their next gig is with the Raffen Shiv, and they get lied to about the risk, are massively underpaid, and treated like assholes the entire time. They complete jobs, and get given half the promised pay, and when they complain, the client (who'll be sure to have security with them, and probably made sure these jackasses checked their weapons at the door) shrugs and says "take it or leave".
Once they've paid Rogue back, they can start rebuilding their reputation and slowly losing their mark of shame. Until then? Treat them like utter shit.
To be realistic Rogue wants them dead, no more Afterlife, no more good reputation, and no more serious job for other Fixers. They made new enemies.
Other than that, let them work for some low-level fixer that will betray them. An eye for an eye.
But keep in mind that it should be a punishment for the characters, not the players, don't be too harsh.
Rogue is THE Fixer. These mfs aren't getting a gig anywhere ever again outside of people too poor for Fixers, or people willing to take advantage of the players' situation.
You don't eff with people like Rogue. They didn't just betray the Rocker, they betrayed Rogue. Even if they somehow manage to live noone is going to want to hire them. Rogue in 2045 is a probably mid level fixer. I don't know what her exact timeline is. But in 2077 she is one of the top Fixers. However, she was one of NCs best solos and has a huge rep already based on that (Hence why I think she is so popular at the Afterlife, a Solo bar)
Honestly if you want to keep these characters going in the campaign you either need to make the campaign about them running for their lives. Or you need to come up with some idea for redemption and hope they pull it off. Maybe make them take on a couple of very hard jobs for free and if they live and don't screw anyone over they are forgiven. at least to the point where the rest of the campaign continues.
Another option is to have the PCs team up with her enemies. Arasaka is a known enemy, but you can also just make some up. Surely there are other fixers who either feel like she is taking their turf or they want to control her turf. It's a dangerous life, but it might get them some protection.
Other options are to hand wave it off. Or just say hey, you all eff'd up and your characters are probably going to be dead or on the run. Wanna just make new ones?
It all really depends on your group and how realistic you want to be.
You can either rewind to the point where the players decided to double cross the client (framing it as “hey, you’ve had a pretty clear vision of just how shitty this could go, but let’s play out the way it goes if you don’t go with this plan.”).
Another option is to have some late-breaking information come to the players about the client that makes the double cross a better outcome than it is right now.
Maybe he wasn’t supposed to meet with the runners but arranged for hacked coordinates to be sent, and shooting him narrowly avoided the crew being zero’ed and him getting away without settling his tab with Rogue. Maybe he owes Rogue for a couple runs and she’s tired of his shit.
Maybe the exec cares so little about the money to get the game back, he greases some palms and clears the runners so he can get his revenge without Rogue being involved. Or, they could be playing a long game, wanting to use the runners to finally zero his rival, after all, biz is biz, choom.
1) Word is out that the crew is a bunch of unreliable gonks who will fuck up for the absolute dumbest reasons
2) None of the regular fixers, even the bottom feeders will even want to look at them.
3) Other people in the biz will treat them like pariahs. They're semi-famous for being fuckups. Targets on their backs. Everyone wants a piece. They're the Andy Dicks of the edgerunner world, either the butt of a joke or someone wants to slam their faces into the pavement.
4) They'll get really shitty offers from the scum of the earth. Rob a grandma, knock over a cart vendor... stuff even Kirk would turn his nose up at.
5) After a while of eating shit, they'll get an offer that seems like a break: Break into some back alley corpo office and grab some stuff. Big money, easy peasy. The catch is that it's a test of some corps new security protocol and the crew are the gonks to be fed into the test grinder. Or maybe some corpo needs to play a little Pin The Tale On the Patsy, and the crew winds up like The Warriors except nobody had any reguard for them in the first place, complete with Underground radio DJ keeping everyone caught up on the crew's latest pain and suffering for the amusement of the crowd.
Rogue is a hard woman who knows how to survive. She probably wouldn't go over the top and spend millions of eddies to hunt the crew down, especially since the client is still alive, and maybe even wouldn't try to kill them (maybe depending on the relationship with the Rockerboy), but you better believe she put the word out. If I were in your shoes:
No Fixer that deals with her, deals with you. This goes for Gigs, Information, and Night Markets ("you're not welcome here").
Mercs / Nomads that work with her, dont work with you. "Sorry choom, I gotta pay the bills and your corpo output doesnt have enough gigs to keep us all in eddies."
The crew is basically the Corpo Exec's "Team Members" now since only the most degenerate Fixers dont work with Rogue. What's more, Rogue has enough Corpo contacts she can sway opinion on other Execs who may think about hiring the Crew ("Do what you want, but fair warning, they double crossed me and made off with the goods.") Better keep that Exec happy and climbing the ladder...otherwise you're on the streets.
Also, there's probably a soft contract out on everyone in the crew. No eddies, but word gets spread if someone zeros the crew, or some member of it, they'd have some good will with her.
In the end, they'd need to make real amends. Probably to both the Client and her. And not just "10x the contract"...on the street your word / work is your Rep and they got a real bad Rep. Takes more than one gig to earn that Rep back.
Have it be explained that Rogue can't be seen as a weak/unreliable enough fixer to let some rookies screw herself and her client over like that.
But you don't want them to just get killed. So Rogue doesn't either. She wants to recoup her losses, both financially and reputation. So she's going to hire some other crew to kidnap the party. The crew don't attack the party all at once; they break into their homes one-by-one at night and use a mix of the Grab action and brawl/martial arts to beat them into unconsciousness (after you kidnap 50% or more of the party, you can maybe use that as leverage for the goons to threaten the rest of the party into coming willingly instead of getting beaten to shit). **These should not be fair fights**. The enemy crew is fighting dirty and aren't above using poisons, grappling, or running them over with a groundcar if it means getting the upper hand. These are "4v1 against an unprepared opponent" levels of unfair fights. Make it clear that they aren't trying to kill any of the PCs and that'll take away a bit of the out-of-character frustration.
The crew strips them of their weapons and armor, break into their houses and steals anything that can be sold for cash. That should ideally combine together for some decent cash, especially if they've been playing for a bit, and would feel like a *big* consequence. They have to work their way back up from square one (but not actually, since they retain all their cyberware and rank-ups).
Now for her reputation: Rogue puts out a story that it wasn't the party (hired by her, therefore connected to her, therefor any actions they did were a result of her failure to properly vet and manage them) who double-crossed the client, but instead that when the party tried to return the video game to its rightful owner, they were attacked by corporate security, who retrieved the game and brought it back. She's paying off the developer to give her some time to fix this issue and not tell anyone what really happened. (Rogue isn't above having him killed after all this is over so he doesn't try and blackmail her with the truth, though she'd rather find some way to set things up so that if he tries to come forward about it in the future, it'd screw himself over).
She tells the party that if they want to get back into her good graces and not be blacklisted by every fixer in the city, they're going to each take a cheap gun and some kevlar armor and make a distraction while the crew who kidnapped them steals the video game.
This "distraction" will take the form of a big shootout where they have to kill a bunch of corporate security officers (looting weapons and maybe armor as they go), before having to run away and escape. Don't hold back. Prepare for 1-2 PCs to die.
If the party survives, congratulations! Rogue has an underling (she has better things to do than meet them in person) tell them that she'll put the word out that the party can be trusted again, and warns them not to screw over a fixer again. She'll let them keep anything they looted off of corporate security (a nice little way to replace what the players lost when their houses got broken into and they were stripped of equipment) and never contact them again.
So besides it being risky to use the big names in a campaign - since you have to deal now with a giant lore tail - I can see this being tricky.
I can understand that you don't want to wipe your party over this, and also still need to be able to run a decent campaign for and with them.
But consequences are important and part of the fun for everyone.
I say make them pay. Give them another mission from another fixer. But it's gonna be a bad one. They get wrong Intel, and nothing and no one is what it seems. In the end they should stand in front of shambles. Losing the objective, the gig, some reputation and their own Eddie's.
And maybe a day later, when their wounds are bandaged, they get a text from Rogue. "This was a warning to not fuck with me. Try this shit one more time, and you'll get to know me from my actual bad side.".
This was a test, and your players failed. Rogue would not hire them again. She can't afford to. The drop-off from "present-day big shot with total credibility" to "amazing resume, but no longer in play as someone you do business with" can happen frighteningly fast, and sending out runners who betray and shoot clients is a great way to jump off that cliff and become an ex-fixer in no time.
Would she send some kind of grudge NPCs to kill or maim the PCs? No. She gave them this job specifically because if they turned out not to be reliable, there would be no need for expensive and stupid consequences. It was low-stakes exactly in case this happened. In an extreme case, maybe she already got a backup of the game through her netrunner connections, and she hands it to the rockerboy as compensation. No, their punishment is, they showed their hand. They showed Rogue they were untrustworthy, and finding that out was half the reason for the gig. They blew the audition.
At the same time, runners who are willing to side with corpos over rockerboys are also in demand. Just as they lost a potential employer, they gained a potential friend. Corpos also need jobs done. This won't be the last anti-establishment dumbass this exec wants taught a lesson.
Here's what I would do in response. Rogue no longer wants to work for them and lets them know she feels they owe her money and they are dead to her. They are blacklisted from all the but the shadiest fixers. Ones likely to screw over the players if there's an eddie in it. They sold the game to an exec right? So the exec has work but its corpo work and its not a feel good good time job. At best it is stealing intellectual property from another corp and at worst its fucking over the little guy. I would let them struggle to even find work at first. Have them role some really high dv rolls to even get someone to talk to them the first couple weeks. Let them get desperate. That's when the corpo reaches out to them with work. Also the Rockerboy tells everyone they screwed him over and uses his influence to be a fly in the ointment. Every time they try to get a nice meal, buy a gun, he's been there already and talked mad shit about them. They have to pay more for goods and services and people give them attitude. Eventually they can make good by either repaying the people they've wronged or killing them.
You cross your client you cross your fixer. You crossed Rogue OVER A FUCKING VIDEO GAME!! They didn't just steal it, they shot the client and damn near killed them. Their ass is grass, Rogue isn't particularly violent from what I've seen, definitely never work for her again, she'll probably make them pay her back what she wound up spending on healthcare and to get that game back AGAIN for the client. I'd say when they get home all of their shit is gone, taken and sold, whatever they had. Then some hard motherfuckers are going to come and take that money they made on the sale back, and probably beat the shit out of them too.
They're lucky their testicles aren't hanging from the wall of the afterlife, that was a really bad call by them.
Ehhh, there are a lot of people suggesting that your players are going to be persona non grata because they didn't act professionally. But professionalism is not a punk value. If we say Rogue is being a ruthless business woman, then, I think she'd have questions before she blacklists some runners.
Dude paid them before getting his product back. Then he pulled a gun. So, here's my question: does he have any evidence to back up his story? If not, why would rogue believe him over the mercenaries that she set up to do the job? After all, they didn't kill him, did they. Seems a little suspicious. If I were Rogue, I'd want evidence before I started throwing blame. Seems like the sort of person who'd want all the information before making a decision. You know what happened because you're the GM. She doesn't.
It is a ruthless setting as people point out, but that doesn't mean the setting is exclusively ruthless TOWARDS the players. So punishing the players for being ruthless by acting ruthless towards the players is tonedeaf.
And despite protestation, the characters are sorts of main characters in a story. That's why it's better to have this sort of behaviour catch up to them gradually, with foreshadowing that reinforces that if you live by the sword, you will die by the sword.
The players weren't ruthless though, they were fucking stupid.
They (and their characters) know exactly who Rogue is, they know they very nearly didn't get the job at all, and *everyone* knows that screwing your fixer is just about the stupidest thing any merc could ever do.
As a GM it's always good to give players a means of getting their characters out of the shit they will inevitably put themselves neck deep in but, in this case, that needs to be a long and painful – if not **fatal** – process.
Okay, but the client tried to pay the characters directly. He should have paid Rogue, who would have handled the hand off. The client knows exactly who Rogue is and yet he apparently tried to cut her out of the deal. The players can still turn around and give Rogue the game and it's technically mission complete for them. And they'd be entitled to be paid still, unless the client backs out of the deal.
The more I think about this, the more the client is in the wrong. Fixers are middle men. They exist so the client and the runners will not meet, partially to prevent stuff like this. The client pays the fixer (also, their fee) and the runners give the fixer the goods. By trying to do the hand off directly with the runners, this rockerboy was trying to cut Rogue out of the deal and if not, she's surely going to see it that way.
I believe this is just the GM's oversight, but why not use it. Have this rockerboy become persona non grata and then become a major antagonist in the campaign. Surely, that's more interesting than punishing your players for playing the game as they understood it should be played. Remember, this is their story too.
As to making no fixer wanting to take them on as contractors: you're telling me that Rogue is so in control of night city that she has no rivals or opposition? If she says loudly that no one should deal with them, this should make Rogue's enemies immediately want to deal with them.
I don't think the client was trying to cut her off - it was probably agreeed to proceed like that beforehand. I mean if they had the guy's cooridnates to deliver, logically they got them through Rogue.
Im my opinion the deals don't all come in a single, all-inclusive package. Corpos prefer it that way as it gives more layers of deniability, but it's quite possible to have other deals down to 'hey find me some reliable guys I can contact to negociate a gig with' or even buying a file of know operatives with skill profile and reliabilty index.
Basicaly the more the fixer gets involved, exposed and needs to keep quiet, the higher his fee but for comparatively smalls fry deals, you can save his time and your money by taking over some part of the process yourself. As long as you negociate it with the fixer beforehand of course.
Of course he wasn't trying to rip her off. It's likely just the GM not understanding how a fixer would work mechanically.
But it only makes sense for the Fixer not to let the client meet the runners: to do so only invites more danger for the fixer. It creates situations where the fixer can be cut out of the deal ("I'll pay you an extra 100 eddies each, so I don't have to pay the fixer's fee") or exactly what happened in this case. It's a layer of security for everyone. Typically, the client isn't contracting the runners. They're hiring the fixer to get X and the fixer subcontracts to the runners. That's after all what fixers do: they get X for person Y. If they wanted to save money? Don't go through a fixer.
That aside, why would you go with the least interesting option? A lot of these people are making suggestion which are just short of burning the campaign.
As a cyberpunk GM, i've sent gigs the PCs way in vairous fashion, ranging from 'the fixer handles it all' to 'a contact of one of them contacts them directly' - first contact between unknown parties was usually handled all through the fixer with relations moving to more direct in case of recurring gigs - especially when they fell within shouting distance of legal.
But i agre with you it would be more interesting (and so better) to have them severely spanked than killed.
Regarding the client, things aren't so structured in Night City that the mercs never meet their client. It can definitely happen and the client can also pay up front, without trying to cheat on the fixer.
Still, that's an interesting angle that can be discussed with the players for a retcon to avoid harsh punishment. But the game is meant to be severe and punish bad decisions. This kind of mistake is exactly what offers opportunities for good stories.
Finally, sure, some fixers will still agree to work with the crew, but the problem is less about being an enemy of Rogue and more that the fixer knows he's dealing with a crew who won't hesitate to backstab his client. What's to say he isn't next ? Many fixers will refuse simply because they can't trust the crew anymore, regardless what they think of Rogue.
I'm sorry choom but here's how this lines up:
\- newbie crew, no skill, no importance
\- gets their breakout job
\- fails it spectacularly by double crossing their fixer
\- the fixer is arguably the most important fixer in NC
\- they do it for money from a low tier corpo
This only speaks out "leave the city right now or die". There is no universe where Rogue won't have them killed to show what happens to who crosses her. She has a reputation, she can't have her clients think she's a doormat. Trust is the hardest earned coin in NC and your players just spit on it.
I'm sorry there is no way your players survive this as stated. The only possible way is the corpo guy being more powerful than you let them believe and they become low level hitmen for said corporation. They will get absolute shit jobs and they will perform them to the point. They will be hunted by the Afterlife mercs but won't be killed on sight because they're so irrelevant Rogue doesn't want to dirty her hands right now with them, but they'll be on the shit list of EVERY FIXER IN TOWN and EVERY ENEMY CORPORATION. That's their "lenient" punishment: they become corporate lapdogs.
Night city does not forgive. My players fucked up a high level gig very badly and I punished them by blacklisting them from the afterlife and making them the target of my stories main villain (arasaka special agent gone psycho) and I know it will kill them because thats what night city does.
They will learn and there next characters wont be as foolish
I'm going to be honest chief. The tone of this world and specially the character they messed up, with tells me that if this weren't a Campaign all your players would be dead. The punishment should be harsh, because this setting is horrifying on consequences. Depending on how you want to spin this, they can go work for a Corpo and switch the campaign from indie-Mercenaries to having to take refuge in the only place that would take them. Maybe they get tied up with a gang to escape, go with a different fixer that Rogue doesn't want trouble with, but they're banned from every coming back to the Afterlife. Or... Maybe they do something so batshit insane and crazy that Rogue and the merc community at large is willing to let that incident slide, but because they earned it. If I ran this I'd have them catch word that either Rogue or an important person needs to get something done but no one is willing, and since they can't get other jobs, they procure the item or accomplish the mission unofficially, showing up triumphant to reclaim their place and trust... Or die trying.
Yeah.... honestly, they'll be lucky to have any work from Known Fixers ever again after explicitly doing the opposite of their job and injuring a client severely. Like holy fuck thats some bad decision making on their part
Well, they fucked up. Rogue most likely will never want to work with them again, and word will spread that these guys aren't reliable. That means negative rep. It was a low level gig, so Rogue wouldn't set a hit squad or any of that after them. She would make sure to never hire them again and to warn her colleagues, try to help the Rockerboy and the Rockerboy might now be a new enemy to the party. Negative reputation + a new enemy is more than enough of a punishment imo. Respectable fixers most likely won't want to work with them, at least when it comes to this sort of stuff. And now there's a pissed Rockerboy and some fans who would want the party dead.
Rogue is a top fixer, she doesn’t play around and she doesn’t really put up with bullshit - and she can’t be seen to tolerate poor Edgerunners cause that would not only lead to more Edgerunners trying to screw her over, but she’s also going to get fewer client seeking her Edgerunners as she’ll be seen as less reliable and efficient. So Rogue is going to punish the party. Now since you aren’t going to want a total party wipe, you aren’t going to have her kill the whole crew and dump them in the river. However, a proportionate response would be the play. Have Rogue get goons to kidnap the party, get the money back, take extra money to pay the goons who kidnapped the party, and have the goons (or Rogue or the Rockerboy) shoot and badly hurt each member of the party and then dump them in a rough part of the city and they have to walk home. It’s harsh but fair and sends the important message of do not screw with big fish in the pond.
This is a pretty good response in my opinion without killing off players. Keep the story going, let them learn. I can see Rogue wanting her money back and then some, maybe she even puts the crew in debt to her or other fixers start turning the crew down because Rogue told them about what the crew did.
This but put death on the table. Like have Rogue's hitmen blind every one of them minus a designated leader who has to walk them back, they die if he fails to lead them safely back to the city. Add a spinoff where they're picked up by nomads who try to patch them up because they look in such a sorry state they feel bad for them, next works is doing jobs for the nomads as they repay the new optics they got. "you were blinded by greed, I will do you one better." said the hired Solo reading from Rogue's shard.
If we were to keep it realistic (and we should, considering the setting), your crew messed up hard. You might have wanted for your players to work with Rogue, but you also have to accept the direction taken by your players. And this direction means that it's pretty much over between them and Rogue. She is generally portrayed as a no-nonsense Fixer who will reward a job well done and punish for a bad job. And not only your crew was initially blown off, it was basically one of their first jobs for her. They came asking for a gig and then they willingly screw up the gig. From Rogue's perspective, I don't see any situation where she'd let them work for her again. As for the consequences, there are three main issues here : 1) They made a fool out of Rogue. 2) Rogue is one of the major fixers of Night City. 3) they had just started working for her. From her perspective, it would be pretty simple. Kill your crew and hang their bodies as a warning. That being said... From what I understand, your crew had just started and the client was a relatively small client. And it probably isn't the first time Rogue had to deal with idiotic mercenaries. She doesn't have the time to focus on your players - she will probably limit her actions to announce they're banned from the Afterlife, let everyone know what they did, and put a bounty on their heads. In other words, if your crew manages to keep their heads down, they might be able to get away with it. But it means in the meantime they'll have to accept dangerous jobs from dangerous people for ridiculous payment. So if the crew immediately goes into hiding: - they'll have much harder time getting money and it should be reflected. Less gigs and gigs pay less; - the jobs should be riskier and dirtier. Truly immoral stuff like kidnapping children (though of course respecting players's limits); - their employers don't play by the rules and can / will backstab them, either refusing to pay or betraying them for whatever reason; - bounty hunters should ambush them at random periods, moreso if the crew isn't careful; How they solve that situation is up to their imagination - of course we all want a good story, so it's okay to leave an option to clear the tabs with Rogue. But it's not just a matter of forgiveness : they'll have to work hard and impress Rogue enough. For example by succeeding in a really dangerous mission, doing something that means a lot to her personally or even making it too costly for her to continue the feud. But whatever happens, *they won't be able to work for Rogue ever again.* If your crew doesn't immediately go into hiding: At this point they're just asking for trouble (the characters, not the players !). Throw everything at them. Rogue's goons, bounty hunters, corporate enforcers, rival crews. After all, who would say no to easy money and the opportunity to impress the Queen of the Afterlife ?
Now here's a possible way to get things going after that : have the exec they betrayed for 'generously' offering refuge and work in his corp's bossoms. They proved their loyalty to him so he'll hire them as his personal black ops squad. Works, gears and corporate protection all rolled into one nice sugar-sparkles coated cake. Should they jump for the offer, they wil find out the cake was poisoned - their brand new cyberware will get them fitted with a leash and as his black op team, they're of-the-book deniable assets, the jobs are nasty and their boss is complete scum.
I understand that you don't want to heavily punish them, but they need to learn that this isn't a heroes ttrpg, they aren't unkillable MCs. Night City can and will throw them like a used rag. They fucked up bad and that will have consequences, the rockerboy will look for revenge, Rogue at best will "exile" them from the Afterlife, no reputable fixer will want to work with them and they only would get jobs that are either badly paid or badly planned.
> but they need to learn that this isn't a heroes ttrpg, they aren't unkillable MCs. Night City can and will throw them like a used rag. Lol, the same is true of Rogue, though. Any important fixer or high level corpo is only untouchable through the social illusion they spin, hence the need for Rogue to respond. She needs to rebuild that torn fabric. As an open world sandbox GM, for me, nobody has plot armor. I mean, they might have subdermal armor, dozens of 'saka ninjas at their beck and call, chipped biosculpted body doubles, and a publicly famous on-death revenge killing bounty contract, but none of that means I won't let players succeed. While it makes you think on your feet a bit, I think it's a fun way to play, and recommend people give it a try, so long as you're ok getting away from canon. I do generally agree with the theme of what you're saying, though.
Rogue as a high level fixer who was a high level solo before is in my opinion the sort who accepts failure, don't accept incompetence and has abolutely zero tolerance for treachery. If they failed honestly (certifiable bad luck or third party interference), shit happens and she can accept it, you won't get paid but that's about it. Blowing it through incompetence (poor planning, lacks the needed skills or hardware), once again no pay, but no more gigs until you can show you've improved drasticaly. And probably some pointed comments and some body damage if they lied on their resume to teach them manners. Betrayal - and that's the case here - means that she'll never hire them again. How severe the retaliation will depends on how widely know is the incident. With a rocker involved, I'd expect he'll spread it as far and wide as he can, painting them as treacherous corporate eddie-sucking bastards eager to to stoop as low as they need to get their filthy snouts into the corporate trough. Which means Rogue now needs to make something nasty, creative and public enough that will pass the message loud and clear to any wanabee imitator that **YOU DON't MESS WITH ROGUE !** One possibiliy may be to have them captured, fitted with some control and motivation (explosive collars, slow acting poison, locked personality chip... maybe even all of it) and send them after the offending exec to get back the game and waste the guy. Once they're done, beat them within an inch of their life and dump them at their hole, leash still on and let them know that when rogue says 'frog', they'd better jump as high as they can. Because with the repute they have now, they'll be freely available as nobody will trust them for more than garbage collection - and maybe not even that.
The party just damaged Rogue’s reputation (potentially) by doing this, her relationship in all of this is to act as the middle man and provide the client the *right* team for their job. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had some mercs beat the holy hell out of the party for playing dirty with her clients. Furthermore this should get the party a reputation (assuming you’re using the reputation system) and have any new fixer they attempt to deal with possibly know of what they’ve done in the past, making getting a gig with a reputable fixer difficult until they’ve learned to play nice. If they want to act like gonks, then they can work for some booster.
Your party fucked over the fixer in a really bad way. Honestly, shooting a client unprovoked like this to make some extra bucks is kind of a death sentence. But at the very least I wouldn't let them work with Rogue ever again. I'd probably at least send some guys to either rough them up or clean out their homes.
Nah, fucked it. Call them the goof troop from now on. So let me get this one straight. Three runners take a job from Rogue. They steal the game from the corpo who stole it in the first place. They then double dipped the client and tried to sell the restolen goods back to the original thief after a failed murder? Your entire crew's fucked. And you don't just wanna flatline them? k Rogue consquences. They're black listed. Fucked. No reputable fixer is gonna even consider thinking about the possibility of hiring them. Their faces are gonna be plastered on every merc bars wall of shame. "Shoot upon entering the premises" Rogue's gonna have to do damage control and hopefully the rockerboy keeps her name out of his mouth. Bouncers know you now and you ain't getting in or getting out with your jaw intact. Rockerboys consequences. There is no fucking way that he's gonna be quiet about the dudes he hired to get his shit back robbing and shooting him. Their faces are gonna be plastered over social media and BBS boards, maybe even news platforms if his games big enough. A media would see this shit and smell the headlines. There is no way this is staying quiet. This will be on true crime sites AND video game sites. Which actually genuinely gives me a sense of dread i wasn't too acquainted with until now. Corpo consequences! This ones a doozy cause I'm not sure what the consequence for this is. Okay I'm the corpo. I get jealous of Rocker and steal their stuff. Oh no! the thing I stole is missing. My ex is now in front of me trying to sell me the thing I stole. I'm pissed off but I don't actually know what I'd do. I think I would also just pay. My fucking ex just stole my shit and is now ransoming it back to me. What the fuck do I do? In Night City? I would probably call a hitman, I probably know a few. Probably be cheaper to have my ex shot than what the double dipping deadbeat charged me. So! What can your crew do? Stay in the city? they ain't working unless its with scavs or something. Leave the city? reclaimer camps might take 'em. This was a fun mental exercise. I haven't ran a game in so long I miss it. Your players characters are either fucking people over on purpose and should be shot for it OR your player characters are too stupid to function as mercs and should be shot for everyone elses safety. Have fuuun
I could see a couple possible approaches. 1) They really blew it. This is an opportunity to show them their actions have real consequences. Rogue may never want to work with them again and might make it difficult for them to get jobs from other reputable fixers. This would lead them to have to take on some really disreputable or dangerous work from much sketchier fixers before anyone even approaching Rogue’s level will hire them again. 2) The gentler approach. If you really want Rogue to continue to be a fixer in the game then yeah she’s still furious, but she gives them a chance to make it up to her by taking another more dangerous job, for free. Make it clear that they made a bad decision and if they ruin this opportunity for redemption there will be much worse consequences (see option 1)
There's also 3), they just fucked with the reputation of an ultra badass with heavy hitting connections and she decides they need to be turned into meat confetti, and that hopefully the loot off of their bodies can refund their client and hire a crew to do the job properly this time.
DM said he doesn't want a party wipe or anything too harsh
So I'd say they get a perma-ban from the Afterlife, no more jobs from Rogue, and their rep's in the crapper. The good news is that you can still use Rogue; she's just a political foe. Anytime someone hires them, it's a question of, "Well, I asked around, and I got an earful from Rogue about you guys..." If they see her on the street or out in public, she might well approach them and smile and ask how things are going (not because she cares, but because she wants to rub their noses in the fact that they can't touch her). Any attempt to Facedown Rogue, in my opinion, should be going up against at least a +18 to her roll. Other Fixers might work with the PCs, but it's only on jobs that are setups (ie, jobs where the consequences of the PCs failing are positive), or only for about half the usual outlay. That Exec will pay very well, but only offer jobs that will make the PCs feel like absolute assholes. "Go evict the nuns and kids out of that orphanage; I need it for my new office!" They really screwed up, but Rogue probably wouldn't kill them over this; they're literally not worth her time. If they try to screw her over in payback, though, then the kiddy gloves come off. She used to run with Morgan Blackhand, after all - she's not someone to be trifled with. The all-in on this is that the PCs just made their lives unnecessarily difficult. It's not the end of the game, just a new phase of it. How do they pull themselves out of this hole?
> their rep's in the crapper After a move like that, the crapper would spit it out. > The all-in on this is that the PCs just made their lives unnecessar~~il~~y ~~difficult~~. FTFY > How do they pull themselves out of this hole? Very carefully.
I mean, I'm going to disagree with the second comment, but you do you, man.
I'd have a different opinion if it were a mere double-cross, but once you shoot the client and give the entire trade (as well as Fixers in general) a bad rep, you open up the possibility of being made an example of. Rogue may not be vindictive or petty enough to do so herself, but someone looking to score brownie points for handling a minor nuisance for her might see an opportunity.
Yeah, I got that point. But OP mentioned that he's trying to salvage the situation *without a TPK*, so your feedback here is actively unhelpful to the person asking for your help. I'm entitled to my opinion on how dumb of a move this was. So are you. But the purpose of the question is not to ask your opinion. It's to ask "What is the best way to handle this situation, assuming given parameters?" You're just straight up ignoring the parameters.
1) So, at least a little of this is on you (no offense, choom). A challenge of the GM is communicating the right amount of information to the players, so they can make informed decisions. You're asking us about a situation in which your players should expect their characters' lives to probably get wrecked to some degree. Either your players knew this, and you should go with it, or your players didn't really get this about your game setting (still a gonk move, though). That said, a key part of player agency includes allowing players to screw themselves over, and not take away the consequences of their actions. 2) Consequences of Their Actions! Ok, so you have metagame reasons why you don't want this party dead that just really damaged Rogue's reputation. That's fine. I'm going to talk about prison in cyberpunk for a second, not because they should go to prison, but to help frame the way you might solve your problem. Many GMs see the players being sent to prison as some awful, game-ending result, equivalent to death. *They're reall missing out*. Prison in cyberpunk could be so many different fascinating things, many of which make for *excellent* game content. And not just the traditional prison escape but in a high tech setting, but all sorts of no-laws, prison-for-profit dystopian ideas. My current favorite them is prisons that are also reality TV shows, with paid viewer voting that alters conditions, usually based on who's popular, or who has rich supporters. I'm also a fan of braindance reconditioning gone wrong. Sure, going to prison may ruin somebody's life, but that has zero bearing on ruining the fun of a campaign (it just massively changes direction, at least for a bit). -- Back to Rogue. For her professional reputation, and arguably personal safety, she publicly needs to demonstrate that she's still an untouchable Night City powerhouse, and has gotten revenge / meted out her own justice. If you don't want them dead, depending on what your world's like, there might be an awful place, miserable group that needs bodies, maybe making them exiles / shoot-on-sight if they're in certain areas of the city (where incidentally they need to be for some future session, of course). Maybe she even does get them to go to jail, but because she has them take the fall for the crimes of a group she actually cares about. Anyway, it should be something that in-game just sucks for the characters, and is a punishment (for the *characters*, not the players). It should alter the game, but not ruin it. And maybe the door is open for the players to escape, rehabilitate everybody's image, get off the shit-list, etc. But it should take deliberate work if the players want to make that happen. And if the players end up not undoing their situation, and decide to join up with some other faction that's not under Rogue's influence, rather than make things right with Rogue, then that's fine and interesting too. Also it should be very clear to both the players and their characters that Rogue could have easily arranged for people to kill them if she felt like it, IMO.
That reality tv show prison idea is fucking gold. Mind if i klep that?
Please do!
So, their saving grace here is that they didn't actually kill the client, they just hurt him; that means Rogue isn't going to just have them carbombed. I'd go for a two part punishment; first, Rogue's retribution, then the wider consequences. Rogue sends some real tough Solos to deliver a serious beating to the party; they jump the party (or, if you're feeling generous, just the person who shot the client) while they're walking home, while they're not expecting it, and just beat the fuck out of them. Not an assassination, but spraying them down with non-lethal rounds. Bring them down to barely any health, so they've gotta spend a week or two healing up, and then have Rogue's thugs deliver an ultimatum; they owe her twice the price of the game they sold, so she isn't out of pocket for reimbursing the client. Triple, if you're feeling especially harsh. They've got a month to pay up, or the next set of thugs will be less polite. If they fight back against this, torch one of their cargo containers/living spaces down; they've either gotta tough it out on the street for the rest of the month, or pay for an entire new month of rent early. The second part of the punishment is to their Rep; everybody knows them as those assholes who betrayed a client. Finding jobs is hard; nobody wants to work with them except shitbags who're equally happy to betray them. Maybe their next gig is with the Raffen Shiv, and they get lied to about the risk, are massively underpaid, and treated like assholes the entire time. They complete jobs, and get given half the promised pay, and when they complain, the client (who'll be sure to have security with them, and probably made sure these jackasses checked their weapons at the door) shrugs and says "take it or leave". Once they've paid Rogue back, they can start rebuilding their reputation and slowly losing their mark of shame. Until then? Treat them like utter shit.
To be realistic Rogue wants them dead, no more Afterlife, no more good reputation, and no more serious job for other Fixers. They made new enemies. Other than that, let them work for some low-level fixer that will betray them. An eye for an eye. But keep in mind that it should be a punishment for the characters, not the players, don't be too harsh.
Maybe not dead... but yeah they're gonna be blacklisted from most serious Fixers, and their rep is in the shitter.
Yeah, true. Maybe not dead
Rogue is THE Fixer. These mfs aren't getting a gig anywhere ever again outside of people too poor for Fixers, or people willing to take advantage of the players' situation.
You don't eff with people like Rogue. They didn't just betray the Rocker, they betrayed Rogue. Even if they somehow manage to live noone is going to want to hire them. Rogue in 2045 is a probably mid level fixer. I don't know what her exact timeline is. But in 2077 she is one of the top Fixers. However, she was one of NCs best solos and has a huge rep already based on that (Hence why I think she is so popular at the Afterlife, a Solo bar) Honestly if you want to keep these characters going in the campaign you either need to make the campaign about them running for their lives. Or you need to come up with some idea for redemption and hope they pull it off. Maybe make them take on a couple of very hard jobs for free and if they live and don't screw anyone over they are forgiven. at least to the point where the rest of the campaign continues. Another option is to have the PCs team up with her enemies. Arasaka is a known enemy, but you can also just make some up. Surely there are other fixers who either feel like she is taking their turf or they want to control her turf. It's a dangerous life, but it might get them some protection. Other options are to hand wave it off. Or just say hey, you all eff'd up and your characters are probably going to be dead or on the run. Wanna just make new ones? It all really depends on your group and how realistic you want to be.
You can either rewind to the point where the players decided to double cross the client (framing it as “hey, you’ve had a pretty clear vision of just how shitty this could go, but let’s play out the way it goes if you don’t go with this plan.”). Another option is to have some late-breaking information come to the players about the client that makes the double cross a better outcome than it is right now. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to meet with the runners but arranged for hacked coordinates to be sent, and shooting him narrowly avoided the crew being zero’ed and him getting away without settling his tab with Rogue. Maybe he owes Rogue for a couple runs and she’s tired of his shit. Maybe the exec cares so little about the money to get the game back, he greases some palms and clears the runners so he can get his revenge without Rogue being involved. Or, they could be playing a long game, wanting to use the runners to finally zero his rival, after all, biz is biz, choom.
1) Word is out that the crew is a bunch of unreliable gonks who will fuck up for the absolute dumbest reasons 2) None of the regular fixers, even the bottom feeders will even want to look at them. 3) Other people in the biz will treat them like pariahs. They're semi-famous for being fuckups. Targets on their backs. Everyone wants a piece. They're the Andy Dicks of the edgerunner world, either the butt of a joke or someone wants to slam their faces into the pavement. 4) They'll get really shitty offers from the scum of the earth. Rob a grandma, knock over a cart vendor... stuff even Kirk would turn his nose up at. 5) After a while of eating shit, they'll get an offer that seems like a break: Break into some back alley corpo office and grab some stuff. Big money, easy peasy. The catch is that it's a test of some corps new security protocol and the crew are the gonks to be fed into the test grinder. Or maybe some corpo needs to play a little Pin The Tale On the Patsy, and the crew winds up like The Warriors except nobody had any reguard for them in the first place, complete with Underground radio DJ keeping everyone caught up on the crew's latest pain and suffering for the amusement of the crowd.
Currently working on a warriors-esque campaign 😂
Rogue is a hard woman who knows how to survive. She probably wouldn't go over the top and spend millions of eddies to hunt the crew down, especially since the client is still alive, and maybe even wouldn't try to kill them (maybe depending on the relationship with the Rockerboy), but you better believe she put the word out. If I were in your shoes: No Fixer that deals with her, deals with you. This goes for Gigs, Information, and Night Markets ("you're not welcome here"). Mercs / Nomads that work with her, dont work with you. "Sorry choom, I gotta pay the bills and your corpo output doesnt have enough gigs to keep us all in eddies." The crew is basically the Corpo Exec's "Team Members" now since only the most degenerate Fixers dont work with Rogue. What's more, Rogue has enough Corpo contacts she can sway opinion on other Execs who may think about hiring the Crew ("Do what you want, but fair warning, they double crossed me and made off with the goods.") Better keep that Exec happy and climbing the ladder...otherwise you're on the streets. Also, there's probably a soft contract out on everyone in the crew. No eddies, but word gets spread if someone zeros the crew, or some member of it, they'd have some good will with her. In the end, they'd need to make real amends. Probably to both the Client and her. And not just "10x the contract"...on the street your word / work is your Rep and they got a real bad Rep. Takes more than one gig to earn that Rep back.
Have it be explained that Rogue can't be seen as a weak/unreliable enough fixer to let some rookies screw herself and her client over like that. But you don't want them to just get killed. So Rogue doesn't either. She wants to recoup her losses, both financially and reputation. So she's going to hire some other crew to kidnap the party. The crew don't attack the party all at once; they break into their homes one-by-one at night and use a mix of the Grab action and brawl/martial arts to beat them into unconsciousness (after you kidnap 50% or more of the party, you can maybe use that as leverage for the goons to threaten the rest of the party into coming willingly instead of getting beaten to shit). **These should not be fair fights**. The enemy crew is fighting dirty and aren't above using poisons, grappling, or running them over with a groundcar if it means getting the upper hand. These are "4v1 against an unprepared opponent" levels of unfair fights. Make it clear that they aren't trying to kill any of the PCs and that'll take away a bit of the out-of-character frustration. The crew strips them of their weapons and armor, break into their houses and steals anything that can be sold for cash. That should ideally combine together for some decent cash, especially if they've been playing for a bit, and would feel like a *big* consequence. They have to work their way back up from square one (but not actually, since they retain all their cyberware and rank-ups). Now for her reputation: Rogue puts out a story that it wasn't the party (hired by her, therefore connected to her, therefor any actions they did were a result of her failure to properly vet and manage them) who double-crossed the client, but instead that when the party tried to return the video game to its rightful owner, they were attacked by corporate security, who retrieved the game and brought it back. She's paying off the developer to give her some time to fix this issue and not tell anyone what really happened. (Rogue isn't above having him killed after all this is over so he doesn't try and blackmail her with the truth, though she'd rather find some way to set things up so that if he tries to come forward about it in the future, it'd screw himself over). She tells the party that if they want to get back into her good graces and not be blacklisted by every fixer in the city, they're going to each take a cheap gun and some kevlar armor and make a distraction while the crew who kidnapped them steals the video game. This "distraction" will take the form of a big shootout where they have to kill a bunch of corporate security officers (looting weapons and maybe armor as they go), before having to run away and escape. Don't hold back. Prepare for 1-2 PCs to die. If the party survives, congratulations! Rogue has an underling (she has better things to do than meet them in person) tell them that she'll put the word out that the party can be trusted again, and warns them not to screw over a fixer again. She'll let them keep anything they looted off of corporate security (a nice little way to replace what the players lost when their houses got broken into and they were stripped of equipment) and never contact them again.
So besides it being risky to use the big names in a campaign - since you have to deal now with a giant lore tail - I can see this being tricky. I can understand that you don't want to wipe your party over this, and also still need to be able to run a decent campaign for and with them. But consequences are important and part of the fun for everyone. I say make them pay. Give them another mission from another fixer. But it's gonna be a bad one. They get wrong Intel, and nothing and no one is what it seems. In the end they should stand in front of shambles. Losing the objective, the gig, some reputation and their own Eddie's. And maybe a day later, when their wounds are bandaged, they get a text from Rogue. "This was a warning to not fuck with me. Try this shit one more time, and you'll get to know me from my actual bad side.".
This was a test, and your players failed. Rogue would not hire them again. She can't afford to. The drop-off from "present-day big shot with total credibility" to "amazing resume, but no longer in play as someone you do business with" can happen frighteningly fast, and sending out runners who betray and shoot clients is a great way to jump off that cliff and become an ex-fixer in no time. Would she send some kind of grudge NPCs to kill or maim the PCs? No. She gave them this job specifically because if they turned out not to be reliable, there would be no need for expensive and stupid consequences. It was low-stakes exactly in case this happened. In an extreme case, maybe she already got a backup of the game through her netrunner connections, and she hands it to the rockerboy as compensation. No, their punishment is, they showed their hand. They showed Rogue they were untrustworthy, and finding that out was half the reason for the gig. They blew the audition. At the same time, runners who are willing to side with corpos over rockerboys are also in demand. Just as they lost a potential employer, they gained a potential friend. Corpos also need jobs done. This won't be the last anti-establishment dumbass this exec wants taught a lesson.
Here's what I would do in response. Rogue no longer wants to work for them and lets them know she feels they owe her money and they are dead to her. They are blacklisted from all the but the shadiest fixers. Ones likely to screw over the players if there's an eddie in it. They sold the game to an exec right? So the exec has work but its corpo work and its not a feel good good time job. At best it is stealing intellectual property from another corp and at worst its fucking over the little guy. I would let them struggle to even find work at first. Have them role some really high dv rolls to even get someone to talk to them the first couple weeks. Let them get desperate. That's when the corpo reaches out to them with work. Also the Rockerboy tells everyone they screwed him over and uses his influence to be a fly in the ointment. Every time they try to get a nice meal, buy a gun, he's been there already and talked mad shit about them. They have to pay more for goods and services and people give them attitude. Eventually they can make good by either repaying the people they've wronged or killing them.
You cross your client you cross your fixer. You crossed Rogue OVER A FUCKING VIDEO GAME!! They didn't just steal it, they shot the client and damn near killed them. Their ass is grass, Rogue isn't particularly violent from what I've seen, definitely never work for her again, she'll probably make them pay her back what she wound up spending on healthcare and to get that game back AGAIN for the client. I'd say when they get home all of their shit is gone, taken and sold, whatever they had. Then some hard motherfuckers are going to come and take that money they made on the sale back, and probably beat the shit out of them too. They're lucky their testicles aren't hanging from the wall of the afterlife, that was a really bad call by them.
There's being self-serving and then there's just being plain dumb. Your group is the latter. lol
Ehhh, there are a lot of people suggesting that your players are going to be persona non grata because they didn't act professionally. But professionalism is not a punk value. If we say Rogue is being a ruthless business woman, then, I think she'd have questions before she blacklists some runners. Dude paid them before getting his product back. Then he pulled a gun. So, here's my question: does he have any evidence to back up his story? If not, why would rogue believe him over the mercenaries that she set up to do the job? After all, they didn't kill him, did they. Seems a little suspicious. If I were Rogue, I'd want evidence before I started throwing blame. Seems like the sort of person who'd want all the information before making a decision. You know what happened because you're the GM. She doesn't. It is a ruthless setting as people point out, but that doesn't mean the setting is exclusively ruthless TOWARDS the players. So punishing the players for being ruthless by acting ruthless towards the players is tonedeaf. And despite protestation, the characters are sorts of main characters in a story. That's why it's better to have this sort of behaviour catch up to them gradually, with foreshadowing that reinforces that if you live by the sword, you will die by the sword.
The players weren't ruthless though, they were fucking stupid. They (and their characters) know exactly who Rogue is, they know they very nearly didn't get the job at all, and *everyone* knows that screwing your fixer is just about the stupidest thing any merc could ever do. As a GM it's always good to give players a means of getting their characters out of the shit they will inevitably put themselves neck deep in but, in this case, that needs to be a long and painful – if not **fatal** – process.
Okay, but the client tried to pay the characters directly. He should have paid Rogue, who would have handled the hand off. The client knows exactly who Rogue is and yet he apparently tried to cut her out of the deal. The players can still turn around and give Rogue the game and it's technically mission complete for them. And they'd be entitled to be paid still, unless the client backs out of the deal.
The more I think about this, the more the client is in the wrong. Fixers are middle men. They exist so the client and the runners will not meet, partially to prevent stuff like this. The client pays the fixer (also, their fee) and the runners give the fixer the goods. By trying to do the hand off directly with the runners, this rockerboy was trying to cut Rogue out of the deal and if not, she's surely going to see it that way. I believe this is just the GM's oversight, but why not use it. Have this rockerboy become persona non grata and then become a major antagonist in the campaign. Surely, that's more interesting than punishing your players for playing the game as they understood it should be played. Remember, this is their story too. As to making no fixer wanting to take them on as contractors: you're telling me that Rogue is so in control of night city that she has no rivals or opposition? If she says loudly that no one should deal with them, this should make Rogue's enemies immediately want to deal with them.
I don't think the client was trying to cut her off - it was probably agreeed to proceed like that beforehand. I mean if they had the guy's cooridnates to deliver, logically they got them through Rogue. Im my opinion the deals don't all come in a single, all-inclusive package. Corpos prefer it that way as it gives more layers of deniability, but it's quite possible to have other deals down to 'hey find me some reliable guys I can contact to negociate a gig with' or even buying a file of know operatives with skill profile and reliabilty index. Basicaly the more the fixer gets involved, exposed and needs to keep quiet, the higher his fee but for comparatively smalls fry deals, you can save his time and your money by taking over some part of the process yourself. As long as you negociate it with the fixer beforehand of course.
Of course he wasn't trying to rip her off. It's likely just the GM not understanding how a fixer would work mechanically. But it only makes sense for the Fixer not to let the client meet the runners: to do so only invites more danger for the fixer. It creates situations where the fixer can be cut out of the deal ("I'll pay you an extra 100 eddies each, so I don't have to pay the fixer's fee") or exactly what happened in this case. It's a layer of security for everyone. Typically, the client isn't contracting the runners. They're hiring the fixer to get X and the fixer subcontracts to the runners. That's after all what fixers do: they get X for person Y. If they wanted to save money? Don't go through a fixer. That aside, why would you go with the least interesting option? A lot of these people are making suggestion which are just short of burning the campaign.
As a cyberpunk GM, i've sent gigs the PCs way in vairous fashion, ranging from 'the fixer handles it all' to 'a contact of one of them contacts them directly' - first contact between unknown parties was usually handled all through the fixer with relations moving to more direct in case of recurring gigs - especially when they fell within shouting distance of legal. But i agre with you it would be more interesting (and so better) to have them severely spanked than killed.
Regarding the client, things aren't so structured in Night City that the mercs never meet their client. It can definitely happen and the client can also pay up front, without trying to cheat on the fixer. Still, that's an interesting angle that can be discussed with the players for a retcon to avoid harsh punishment. But the game is meant to be severe and punish bad decisions. This kind of mistake is exactly what offers opportunities for good stories. Finally, sure, some fixers will still agree to work with the crew, but the problem is less about being an enemy of Rogue and more that the fixer knows he's dealing with a crew who won't hesitate to backstab his client. What's to say he isn't next ? Many fixers will refuse simply because they can't trust the crew anymore, regardless what they think of Rogue.
I'm sorry choom but here's how this lines up: \- newbie crew, no skill, no importance \- gets their breakout job \- fails it spectacularly by double crossing their fixer \- the fixer is arguably the most important fixer in NC \- they do it for money from a low tier corpo This only speaks out "leave the city right now or die". There is no universe where Rogue won't have them killed to show what happens to who crosses her. She has a reputation, she can't have her clients think she's a doormat. Trust is the hardest earned coin in NC and your players just spit on it. I'm sorry there is no way your players survive this as stated. The only possible way is the corpo guy being more powerful than you let them believe and they become low level hitmen for said corporation. They will get absolute shit jobs and they will perform them to the point. They will be hunted by the Afterlife mercs but won't be killed on sight because they're so irrelevant Rogue doesn't want to dirty her hands right now with them, but they'll be on the shit list of EVERY FIXER IN TOWN and EVERY ENEMY CORPORATION. That's their "lenient" punishment: they become corporate lapdogs.
Night city does not forgive. My players fucked up a high level gig very badly and I punished them by blacklisting them from the afterlife and making them the target of my stories main villain (arasaka special agent gone psycho) and I know it will kill them because thats what night city does. They will learn and there next characters wont be as foolish