Lonestar Game

Adventures using this setting

• Blood For Money
• Coding

Lone Star Campaign

For a long time i’ve had a desire to run a Lone Star game. I’ve always been a huge fan of police procedural’s on TV and I thought i’d take a stab a writing a small campaign for it. I then had the idea of releasing these as episodic posts someone might be able to use for their own campaign.

That makes this first post a setup post with a few special rules. Some of these are modified directly out of the Lone Star book. It was a very good resources, but I think it could use for some more gamification on both sides of the law. The campaign will revolve around 2 different aspects. It’s up to you and your table if you want to play out the Court Cases. Otherwise, this is a background activity that the sessions build too. It should be the crux of your campaign to see these suspects charged and placed in jail!

I will be releasing 12 adventures to go with this setting to get you and your friends in the seat. A lot of these are based on episodes of various police procedural with some shadowrun flare.

If you do decide to run this campaign please let me know! I’d love to hear some war stories! Please send me an email. Dean ‘at’ nullsheen.com.

Court Cases

Gathering Evidence

When dealing with “large (IE Plot) cases”, the officers will have to gather evidence and be able to present the DA with enough to land the case. Each piece of evidence is worth 1 to 3 points. This evidence must be handled correctly and never lose the chain of custody. If either of those occur, the evidence degrades by 1 level (to useless if less than 0).

Examples of Evidence:

• Finger prints
• Murder weapon
• Eye Witness (Who will testify)
• Video Recordings
• Audio Recordings
• Etc.

Notice how some of these assets can be destroyed and or killed. Your evidence must actually make it to trail to be counted!

You may spend a karma in order to prevent a piece of evidence from being degraded by some happen stance. Each time will require more karma than the last. 1,2,4,8,16,etc. One exception is that witness cannot be protected in this way, only physical evidence. Its up to the witnesses themselves to spend the karma. Which may come hard to those who have already witnessed and survived something terrible…

Slips in Judgement

Sometimes you have to bend the rules to get the job done. If that gets noticed that puts ammo in the pocket of the defense attorney. This ends up as a “Task Pool” to be used by the criminal defense team. It’s limited up to the skill of the Attorney (Can’t use more than you know how too).

Successful Defense

When a case comes to court, the defendant must answer to judgement on the following criteria: motive, means and ability.

• The motive represents the character’s reason for committing the crime.
• The means, the tools necessary to perform the crime.
• The ability, the skill necessary to commit the crime.

If all three can be proved in court, supported by the testimony of witnesses and the presence of physical evidence, then the prosecution succeeds in presenting an iron-clad case. Lack of or sufficient cause to disregard one or more of these criteria increases the character’s chance of being acquitted.

The game master must determine the strength of the case against the runner based on motive, means, and ability. Rate the case against the character on a scale of 1 to 20, with 1 being the weakest and 20 being the strongest (i.e., an open-and-shut case). Use half of this, as the target number for a Success Test made by the defense attorney using the Criminal Law skill. The prosecuting attorney makes a Success Test using the Criminal Law skill as well, using the Criminal Law Rating of the defense attorney as his target number. The attorney with the highest number of successes wins the case. If the two attorneys achieve the same number of successes, the judge declares a recess and sets a new date for a hearing. At the new hearing, the attorneys must make new Success Tests.

Character Creation Special Rules

Full Magicians Start with 18 Spell Points Aspected Magicians start with 25 Spell Points No gear can have availability above 5. No gear can have a rating above 5. Characters begin with 3 months of medium lifestyle of 9 months of low lifestyle. As a reminder, illegal things get you jail time if you are caught with them. That being said, a lot can be done in the shadows. Starting cash is 1D6x100 Nuyen.

All Characters receive 3 points of Police Procedures (Knowledge Skill). All characters receive 2 points of Psychology, 3 points of a specialty skill (Go Gangs, Smugglers, Organized Crime, Terrorist Groups, Vice, Forensics, Criminal Profiling, Street Drugs, etc.).

Each character starts with 3 contacts and one CI contact. CI Contacts are always level 1 and cannot be raised above that except by CRAZY circumstances. Cannot be someone even remotely high up in any criminal empire at CG.

Each character will be given a full “Basic Kits” as well as Vehicles gear when they drive in their shops.

Special Campaign Rules

• Lose your Job, Lose your Life
  • Part of the limitations of this campaign is you cannot get fired. If you ARE fired or go to jail, you must retire your character.

NPCs

The world is full of people on both sides of the line.

Friends of the Blue

Officers

• Captain Ashley (Ash) Grey - Leader of the Seattle Lonestar Precinct.

• Lt. Mark Stone - Cpt Grey’s Right hand. Anytime Grey is too busy to handle something, Stone is the next in line.

• Lt. Ellen Asher - Cpt Grey’s ‘doom speaker’. If something needs to be said and no one has the guts to do it. Asher gets it done.

Lawyers

• Emily Lawton - DA - Criminal Law 7, The best attorney the bench has to offer.

• Derrick Jennings - DA - Criminal Law 5, Thinks he is God’s gift to the law.

• Lenny Scull - DA - Criminal Law 3, One of the last people you want on your side.

Etc.

• Skip Tracer Randy - A great resource, though he is a squirrely as the day is long.

Enemies Of the Blue

• Marley Animus - Slick Mob Lawyer - Criminal Law 5

• Erica Jenner - Driven Public Defender - Criminal Law 6

• Kyle Jewel - Highest end of Lawyer - Criminal Law 8

Basic Kits

• For Every Officer
  • Armored Vest with Plates
  • Can of Pepper Punch
  • Handcuffs x2
  • Ruger Thunderbolt Sidearm
  • Backup Mags x4
  • Flash Light
  • Stun Baton (6S Stun)
  • Basic Docwagon off duty, Gold on duty
  • Commlink Rating 4
• Vehicle Kits
  • Spike Strip
  • Headstoppers x4
  • Jackstoppers x10
  • Magemask x2
  • Skill Twitcher x1
  • Blood Tester
  • AUG-CSL-AR [Assault Rifle, 40 (clip), SA/BF/FA, 8M, w/2 extra clips, Internal Smartlink, Gas-Vent 2 Recoil Compensation, Thermographic Scope]]
  • CMDT/SM Combat Gun [Shotgun, 8 (clip),SA/BF, 9S, w/3 extra clips, Internal Smartlink,Gas-Vent 2 Recoil Compensation + Shock Pads (1)]
  • MA 2100 Sniping Rifle [Sniping Rifle, 8 (magazine), SA, 14S, Gas-Vent 3 Recoil Compensation + Shock Pads (1), Thermographic Magnification (3) Scope]
  • Riot Shield x2
  • Blanket
  • Rations (Foodbars and Water) x20
  • Stuffed Animals
  • Medical Kit Rating 5
  • Forensics Kit
    • Camera
    • Fingerprint kit
    • Evidence Bags
    • Voice Recorder
    • Removable Hard drives
• By Assignment Only
  • Cyberware Scanner Rating 3
  • Blood Scanner Rating 3
  • Demolition Kits
  • Electronics Kits
• Vehicles
  • “BLACK MARIAH” USPTV
  • LONE STAR-MODIFIED GM-HONDA 3220 ZX TURBO
  • LONE STAR-MODIFIED FORD AMERICAR
  • Specialty Vehicles
    • GMC “HARPY” SCOUT LAV
    • LS-MODIFIED AERODESIGN SYSTEMS CONDOR LDSD-23
    • ARES MOB MASTER
  • Drones
    • Strato-9
    • DLK MK 6 Utility Machine (Bomb Disposal)
• Magical Cop
  • Magemask x2

• Adventure