Have any of you ever run a campaign of law enforcement?

[Shorty Lickens]

NOT Bounty hunters?


If so, where?
And when?
And how?
And why?

[Vincent Takeda]

Tried one once recently. Quattoria hunting down a kreeghor noble across an alien world without the ability to call for backup. Falls short of the law enforcement label for me simply because it was less peacekeeper of a local territory style law enforcement and more like 'the fugitive', while at the same time doomed to fail even in that regard since the player who plays the quattoria has a penchant for 'paladins of the holy church of take no prisoners'... There may have initially been a thought to capturing the kreeghor noble alive, but get the drop on this particular quattoria and suddenly it personal.

They finally caught up to it as it was in disguise, attempting to join another alien civilization in escaping to another homeworld by way of a volcano sized dimensional rift. They nailed him with a carpet of adhesion and lit him up like burning man for so long that his corpse was a lava pudding of unidentifiable molten sludge. While it felt more like a bounty hunt than a prisoner on the run capture, it ended up being neither... More of a field execution. Minimum bounty. Maximum hunt.

I still have a hard time finding players that dont kill all the things all the time for all the reasons. In the words of one of the players after the fact: "investigators we ain't"

In the broadest possible view the party contained several law enforcement characters charged with a us marshalls style fugitive pursuit, but in all honesty 'take him alive' was probably never seriously on the table, which may not disqualify it as a law enforcement campaign depending on your parameters. If 'take him alive' isnt a necessary element of a law enforcement campaign then this quattoria campaign did indeed fit the bill.

To his credit a quattoria did "begin" reading him is miranda rights before they started slagging him.

p1: You have the right to remain...
P2: *pow*...
p1: Hey. You just shot the prisoner
p2: I think he's angry
p1: I think its because you're not supposed to shoot the prisoner
p2: Uh. When this carpet wears off he's either gonna fight us or get away again and i'm not gonna let him get away from us again. If we're fightin him, this is how I want to do it.
p1: Hmmmmm.
p1&p2: PowPowPowPowPuPuPuPuPuPuPuPuPuPuPuPuPuPowPuPowPowPowPowPuPuPowPowPowPowPuPuPow... Pow... Jesus... Isnt he dead yet?
gm: I dunno. you wanna stop firing and check him out see how he's doing?
::Party inspects glowing liquid kreeghor pudding.::
Yep. Mission accomplished

[taalismn]

p1: You have the right to remain...
P2: *pow*...
p1: Hey. You just shot the prisoner
p2: I think he's angry
p1: I think its because you're not supposed to shoot the prisoner
p2: Uh. When this carpet wears off he's either gonna fight us or get away again and i'm not gonna let him get away from us again. If we're fightin him, this is how I want to do it.
p1: Hmmmmm.
p1&p2: PowPowPowPowPuPuPuPuPuPuPuPuPuPuPuPuPuPowPuPowPowPowPowPuPuPowPowPowPowPuPuPow... Pow... Jesus... Isnt he dead yet?
gm: I dunno. you wanna stop firing and check him out see how he's doing?
::Party inspects glowing liquid kreeghor pudding.::
Yep. Mission accomplished

"Okay, didn't ANYBODY realize when we took this job that battle-rated lasers, ion busters, plasma projectors, and particle beamers DON'T have 'stun' settings?"
"I figured the perps fall unconscious when they bleed out enough."
"Do we have provision to make sure they DON'T DIE past that point?!"

[Vincent Takeda]

Does he like eventually grow back into a monster after a few minutes so we can arrest him now that he's learned his lesson?
This wasnt covered in the training video...

[taalismn]

Does he like eventually grow back into a monster after a few minutes so we can arrest him now that he's learned his lesson?
This wasnt covered in the training video...

"Super-regeneration just means we hit you harder and more often."

[eliakon]

Yes
I have run C.S.Psi
Set in the burbs it is a police game with the players playing...you guessed it, members of the CS Psi-bat doing police work.
They get to deal with public relations, investigating suspected magic use, cults, wanna-bes, gangs, smugglers, slavers, cyber-snatchers, the Black Market and basically try to keep their part of the Burbs from falling into complete chaos.

[taalismn]

Yes
I have run C.S.Psi
Set in the burbs it is a police game with the players playing...you guessed it, members of the CS Psi-bat doing police work.
They get to deal with public relations, investigating suspected magic use, cults, wanna-bes, gangs, smugglers, slavers, cyber-snatchers, the Black Market and basically try to keep their part of the Burbs from falling into complete chaos.

Camera team from the CS Propaganda Information Ministry ever tag along?

[Warshield73]

Yes
I have run C.S.Psi
Set in the burbs it is a police game with the players playing...you guessed it, members of the CS Psi-bat doing police work.
They get to deal with public relations, investigating suspected magic use, cults, wanna-bes, gangs, smugglers, slavers, cyber-snatchers, the Black Market and basically try to keep their part of the Burbs from falling into complete chaos.

Camera team from the CS Propaganda Information Ministry ever tag along?

I would pay real money to see a CS version of cops.

[taalismn]

[
I would pay real money to see a CS version of cops.

"Deadboys, Deadboys, whatcha goin' do...?"

[eliakon]

Yes
I have run C.S.Psi
Set in the burbs it is a police game with the players playing...you guessed it, members of the CS Psi-bat doing police work.
They get to deal with public relations, investigating suspected magic use, cults, wanna-bes, gangs, smugglers, slavers, cyber-snatchers, the Black Market and basically try to keep their part of the Burbs from falling into complete chaos.

Camera team from the CS Propaganda Information Ministry ever tag along?

I was planning on it yes

But that ended up having to be my HU game
C.A.P.E.S.
"Capes is filmed on location with the men and women of super law enforcement. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law"

[taalismn]

[
C.A.P.E.S.
"Capes is filmed on location with the men and women of super law enforcement. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law"

"NETSEC is filmed on location with the men and women of martial law enforcement. All d-bees are guilty until vaporized by officers of the law."

[Blue_Lion]

The closest I have had was a under cover CS agent under cover in a black market campaign.

[Blue_Lion]

The closest I have had was a under cover CS agent under cover in a black market campaign. The party blamed me when the CS raided the operations in the burbs then when they got away raided their secret safe house. They claimed I was just out to get them. They never figured out that one of the players was a CS spy texting me his reports to the CS under the table.

[Bill]

I ran a demo game with dog boys running patrols and investigations in the Chi-Town burbs as PCs. It went well. I'd run it as a full campaign for the right group.

[slade the sniper]

I have run some LE focused campaigns, but a word of caution...make sure all the players know what the expectations are (serious, keystone cops, noir, etc.) in the game, or else it will turn into a game of Paranoia very quickly (slapstick idiocy with nukes). If everyone is on board for the same type of game, it really is very fun and a nice change from the murder-hobo adventuring game. I like the fact that with a limited setting game (one city, or one precinct) you can really get much more into the character building so that relatives, family, friends, relationships, allies and enemies mean a lot more.

-STS