Donut Run (englisch)

Über das Abenteuer

Donut Run ist ein englisches Abenteuer von Lester W. Smith, das in der Ausgabe Nummer 45 des "Challenge" Rollenspielmagazins erschien, welches zwischen 1986 und 1996 von "Game Designers' Workshop" verlegt wurde. Der Verlag wurde 1996 aufgelöst.

"Donut Run" can be inserted into any urban adventure, adding an element of uncertainty to a larger adventure as the players struggle to analyze this encounter's significance. Or it can be played as a simple shoot 'em up, a chance for players to practice the Shadowrun combat rules.

DONUT RUN

Tell the players

Hole-N-One Donuts lies at the southwest corner of a horseshoe-shaped collection of small shops in midtown Seattle. Entry into the parking lot is from the south, with businesses lining the other three sides.

The front and south sides of the donut shop consist primarily of plexiglass with chromed plastic trim, through which you view an interior of chipped formica counters and faded synth leather seats. Two frazzled women sip soykaf at a table in front, near an ancient juke box, and keep an eye on a trio of preschoolers spinning stools at the counter. Behind the counter, a teen in a stained T-shirt wipes plastic glasses. Business seems light.

You make your way inside, through a glassed-in vestibule, past a half-stocked display case. Through a door behind the case, you can hear the sound of voices, muffled by the hum and clatter of donut production. Passing onward, you take a table near the back, where you can keep watch in all directions. Then you place your order and settle down to business.

While you talk, the young mothers nurse their soykaf; their brood clambers on the bar stools; and other customers come and go. Everything appears to be just wizard, but suddenly you feel a difference- a new tension in the air. You make a quick scan for trouble.There's a pair of rent-a-cops getting out of a van just outside, but that seems normal enough. The kid behind the counter is gone, though, and the back room sounds awfully quiet.

Without warning, that silence is shattered as the mirror behind the counter erupts with a burst of auto fire that also splinters the plexiglass above the young mothers' heads. One rent-a-cop is knocked down by the shots, but the second dives for cover. Then more cops begin to scramble from the back of the van, some to cover the front of the shop, others running to the alley behind it. Looks like a whole SWAT team!

Just your luck. Minding your own business, you get caught up in somebody else's private war. You curse, but your voice is drowned in a sea of noise- guns blazing, cops shouting orders, young mothers and their children screaming. It's another glitter day in Seattle.

Description

During the course of a mission, the shadowrunners decide to meet at a donut shop in a nearby minimall in order to talk over plans or meet someone important. While they are at the donut shop, a place called Hole-N-One Donuts, a rent-a-cop van pulls up outside.

For rent-a-cops to stop at a donut shop is not unusual, but this shop is a front for a black market operation with a load of military weapons and explosives, and the donut shop personnel panic. While two of them begin loading weapons and explosives into a van outside the back door, the others pull out shotguns and automatic weapons, and begin firing on the rent-a-cops out front. In the firefight that follows, the shadowrunners are caught in the middle between rent-a-cops who want to take everyone in for questioning and donut shop employees who want to kill all cops and witnesses, then make an escape.

Background: For several weeks now, Hole-N-One Donuts has been a front for a healthy black market operation. Most of the stuff that has passed through the business has been small-time electronics and light weapons, but last night the proprietor took on a load of military weapons and explosives, and the entire staff is very jumpy about it.

The rent-a-cops are on their way back to the station after a hard two-day contract as bodyguards for a news team doing a report on the worst of Seattle's barrens. Spotting the donut shop, they decided on the spur of the moment to stop for soykaf. Leaving the bulk of the team inside the van (to keep from causing a stir on the street), the driver and "navigator" prepare to get drinks for everyone.

Unfortunately, when the teen tending the counter spots the rent-a-cops, he freaks and heads for the back to tell the rest of the staff. Panic spreads, and while the owner and one employee begin running hardware to a van parked in the alley behind the shop, the other employees arm themselves and prepare to hold the cops off.

In his panic, the counter kid shoots through the two-way mirror above the back counter and hits the cop's van, as well as its driver.

At the sound of gunfire, the rest of the rent-a-cops suit up and vacate the van. Three head for the alley, where they will encounter the proprietor and his sidekick; another five lead an assault on the front of the shop.

Beginning the Firefight: Have each of the players make an Initiative roll while you roll for the cops and employees, giving the employees a bonus of six to the roll.

PCs whose Initiative roll is higher than those of the cops or employees will hear the weapons being readied in the back room before the first burst is fired, and they can take any actions they have coming before the cops' and employees' initiative points.

Character Motivations: Keep in mind that the donut shop employees want primarily to escape and secondarily to geek any witnesses to the firefight, while the cops want to capture anyone and everyone for questioning. The cops fire upon anyone who tries to escape.

The player characters, of course, want to keep from being killed by the shop employees. But they also want to avoid capture by the cops, lest they be checked for SINs and weapons licenses. If ignored, the mothers and their children will simply cower beneath a table and hope that no stray shots hit them. If the PCs interact with them in some way, it is up to the referee's discretion how these noncombatants react.

After a few minutes of firefight, the referee should tell the players that their characters hear the sound of sirens approaching. They have only a short time in which to clear the area.

DEBUGGING

How well the PCs do in this situation will depend, of course, upon what skills they have, what equipment they carry, and how well the players roll dice. The referee is encouraged to make any changes needed to suit the team of shadowrunners, even during the course of play, if necessary. Remember that at the beginning of the fight the players have no way of knowing how many donut shop employees there are. They should only know that three cops headed for the alley, and that sounds of shooting are coming from back there. If the fight out front becomes too one-sided, the referee can bring the three cops or the manager and his pal back into the picture to bolster the losing side. The players can be told that the reinforcements must have finished with their opponents in the alley.

One potential problem is that the PCs might simply cower undercover and let the cops and donut shop employees fight it out, in which case the players will be reduced to watching the referee play combat solo.

If this happens, simply have the players take over the part of the rent-a-cops for a while. This will give even players with combat-poor characters a chance to shoot big holes in things for a change.

After the fight is over, the referee should leave the players guessing as to what brought it about. If they picked up any of the black market stuff or the computer files from the manager's office, it should be obvious to them that the donut shop was merely a front. For that matter, the very fact that the employees were so heavily armed should clue them in to that fact.

It is suggested that one Karma Point be awarded to each PC who survived this mini-adventure.

CHARACTER STATISTICS

For the donut shop owner and his five employees, use the Gang Boss contact's stats (page 167 of the Shadowrun rules book).

The owner fights with a Defiance T-250 shotgun, as does one of the employees holding off the assault from the front of the shop.

The other employees all carry HK-227s. For the eight rent-a-cops, use the Street Cop contact's stats (Shadowrun, page 171). One of the trio headed for the alley, and two of the cops out front carry AK-97 SMG/carbines. The others all have standard AK-97s. All wear armor jackets.

DONUT SHOP

See the map of the donut shop above.

Vestibule: This plexiglass entryway keeps the drizzle out in the street. It also slows exit from the shop.

Main Room: The counter against the west wall contains tableware, soykaf brewers, a microwave, and a credstick register on top, with extra napkins, sugar, and soykaf packets in cabinets beneath. The easternmost display case is 1.5 meters high, and the case against the wall is ceiling high.

On the wall behind the counter is a two-way mirror through which employees in the back room can watch the front, and a similar mirror is located on the north wall, allowing a view from the manager's office.

Manager's Office: This room contains a cheap desk and has crates of black market items along the walls. By the time the PCs might have occasion to be back here, many of the crates will have been opened to allow the donut shop employees to use the firearms inside. However, four HK227s are still here, as well as 50 kilos of Compound 12 plastic explosive. If the PCs cannot find a clear way out of the shop, they might wish to use these explosives to create one.

On the owner's desk is a personal computer (Orange 5, Scramble 3). In its files are records of the shop owner's black market activities, which the referee can use to introduce the PCs to new contacts (fixers, gang leaders, etc.). The referee can also roll for marketable data stored in this computer, using the rules on page 158 of the Shadowrun rule book, but keeping the value per 10 Mp at 2500¥.

Rest Rooms: There's not much of interest here, except a locked (Target Number 5) door that opens into the back room.

Back Room: This large, rambling room is where the shop's donuts are produced. It contains several work tables, a large steel sink, a floor-standing mixer, and a fryer large enough to hold a human body. Soy flour, oil, and flavorings are stored in the corridor at the south end of the room.

The back door opens into an alley with a small parking space for the store owner's van. When the fight starts, three employees will be in this room, firing through the two-way mirror above the fryer and the doorway between the display cases. The shop owner and one more employee will be carrying armloads of black market goods out the back door to the van.

"Donut Run" is intended to be played with the variant shotgun and armor rules described in "New on the Street," also in this issue. But if you are using "Donut Run" as a combat training device for new players, you may want to discount those new rules for the present.