Original Play Date: January 4, 2001
Short Game - 1 1/2 hours
Gang Members Present: Vincent, Codex, Sids, Shaun, Jade.

Early in the evening at the Green Nile, the gang meets up with Jenny. She invites everyone to the Star mall downtown to withness something fun. With nothing else to look forward to this evening beyond hours of smoking and drinking, they hop their bikes and ride into town.

Parking their bikes in the garage of the mall, they ease into the shopping labyrinth. They soon find themselves gathered in the atrium of the mall, two levels above a very public gathering on the ground floor. Below, a man has attracted a crowd of curious onlookers. He is Jack Norton, a former television reporter who was run out of the business when his social agenda began to color his reporting more than his superiors would tolerate. Watching intently for the suprise Jenny has promised, Sids notices that down below, Jack is spreading it on a little thick. Sensing a diversion, he, Codex and Vincent wander upstairs to see if anything unusual is going on.

Below, the crowd is suddenly scattered by Jenny's suprise: Brooklyn and a couple friends are crashing the mall on their bikes. Security comes out shooting, and Shaun leaps the railing to aid his buddies brandishing his gun and his cyberarm pistol.

Above, the mall is closing, and the customers have gone. However, as they round a corner, the group spots a trio exiting a maintenence closet and slink into a nearby stairwell. Vincent gives chase and subdues the trio of strangers, recovering a satchel from a girl after breaking her nose. Above, Codex and Sids attempt to investigate the maintenence room. Codex shoots open the locked door, which attracts mall security. A shootout ensues where Codex is mortally wounded and then Sids is killed.

[GM Notes]

This is a great example of too much RPG or too many action movies syndrome. Used to seeing people shoot open doors for expedience, they forgot to take into account that they were in a mall full of security guards. Normally, mall security is nothing to worry about, except when that mall is a large new mall in the economically devestated and politically fractured United States of 2013. Armed and trained to deal with criminals and booster gangs that could interrupt the shopping of its customers, the guards were easily enough to overwhelm the two errant gang members in the maintenence closet. What will happen to Shaun? What about Vincent? Vincent is highly trained, but can he leave his wounded friend behind to save his own skin, or would that be too much like leaving a soldier in enemy territory for the former Central-Am vet? Shaun is cybered up and armed for bear, but then, he's starting a shootout with mall security in the middle of the atrium. They'll be on him like wolves, while he's stuck in the open.

Historically, mall security has been a joke, but I figured that in this future, three things would change the profile of high-end mall security: the freedom of companies to use lethal force to defend their interests, the ample supply of Central-Am war veterans, and the dangerous and volatile presence of street gangs, booster gangs, and nomad packs. Together, these influences would make mall security more like the Casino or airport security and much more lethal.

Two things that I probably should have advised the players about more: this was the players' first firefight and they didn't anticipate the crippling effects of the Combat Experience Modifier, which is an across the board minus they take to all rolls in a firefight, which greatly hampered their ability to fight, and I could have whispered reality checks to them, as the players probably expected soft, unarmed security like we have in malls today. The players could argue that they were ambushed by unfamiliar rules and an inadequately described environment. However, pulling a gun in the mall was a great excuse to start a firefight and to demonstrate just how lethal Cyberpunk shootouts can be. In the future, I'll make sure to play Jiminy Cricket and whisper into their ears the sensibilities the gang members have that the players do not in this strange world.