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Posted by: kerbarian Jan 14 2007, 06:46 PM

Say a team gets noticed or triggers an alarm while they're inside a corp facility.

The corp's responds by dispatching a physical response team that will take minutes to arrive and can be dealt with by the whole team. Standard fare, not a problem.

However, in addition, the corp dispatches a few mages in astral form to track the intruders and make sure they don't get away. Due to astral travel speeds, the mages can be there in seconds, and no one except full magicians can do anything at all to them.

The runner team has one mage. It looks like the options are

1) The runner mage takes on all of the corp mages by herself.

2) The team has surveillance on them that they can't ditch or fight, and it can be used to keep sending physical teams at them (e.g. one of the mages runs back and forth to a corp facility to report their location).

If the team's mage can't take on the corp mages alone, what can the team do about this situation?

I suppose they could try to hide out somewhere the mages couldn't follow, but what kind of places would work? Some other corp's facility that has heavy astral security? Doesn't sound like a good option. Or some building that has very powerful wards? Again, I can't think of any that would be publicly accessible. And the mages could just hang out overhead and probably pick up the runners again when they leave.

Any other thoughts on what the team could do about it?

Posted by: Thanee Jan 14 2007, 06:52 PM

Go where the funny toxic spirits hang out.

The best thing, of course, is to find out about the level of astral security beforehand, and only take jobs you can manage.

It's not so much different with the physical security. If they are too good for you, you are in trouble.

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Mistwalker Jan 14 2007, 06:56 PM

Yes, they could duck into a warded building, and leave by another exit or in a vehicle. Astral mages would not be able to see them if they were in a vehicle, unless they checked out every vehicle.

The PC mage could just summon some of his bound spirits, tell them to attack the astral mages.

You could go into a place with serious astral problems/background count.

Or places where there are dual creatures, preferably nasty ones.

Or you could duck into a sewer, once the astral mages are there, trap them with somekind of FAB (or other such thing). Or just drop part of the sewers on them, as they can't use astral speed if encased in mother earth. They may even die if they get lost trying to get out.

Posted by: Kyoto Kid Jan 14 2007, 07:25 PM

...this is why you have a Nega-Mage on the team (see: House Rule: Nega Mage thread).

Posted by: Butterblume Jan 14 2007, 07:37 PM

The common (security) wagemage will have pretty average stats. Runner mages tend to be at the higher end of the scale...

Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Jan 14 2007, 07:40 PM

The same way as evading everything else - Stealth skills.

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 14 2007, 07:53 PM

A Mage can only astrally project for Magic hours before dying. Stay on the move. What do you expect these mages to do? They will follow you and if you don't stop in one location long enough for them to send a response then they can't really send a response.

How are these mages communicating with base? I can assure you they're not using their comlink focus. Did they take the time to cast a mind link spell. How will they know where you are, their GPS foci won't be working either. So even if they could communicate back to someone they can't say you're at the corner of first and 1st, etc.

You've got all the advantages of technology on your side as well, so you can call all your contacts and get a variety of assistance depending on the situation. There's lots of options. But basically you can live for days constatntly on the move, 5 minutes at a stuffer shack isn't gonna bring corp goons on you and you can eat. They on the other hand are dead if they stay astrall for any longer than their Magic attribute in hours.

Posted by: Jack Kain Jan 14 2007, 08:37 PM

Your mage could also spend a minnute or two erasing his the magic sig's he's left behind then the party leaves before they arrive, nothing to track astrally complete and clean break.
The party would leave BEFORE the physical team arrives and the mage would cover his astral trail.

Astral Tracking is more then just flying around behind them, if you lose sight you have to make rolls and have an astral trail to follow and its not hard for a mage to erase his astral signature.

Say they have two mages following them. One leaves to report back the groups location. The second gets his astral form knocked out by the PC's mage.
A summoned spirit could delay the mage long enougth for the PC to make a clean break.

Posted by: kerbarian Jan 14 2007, 08:47 PM

Posted by: WhiskeyMac Jan 14 2007, 09:03 PM

It depends on the writer's needs for tension. Some have astral space clear except for an occasional watcher or benevolent free spirit, while others have toxics wandering around attacking anything and everything. I think areas around upscale and corporate interests would probably be either patrolled or kept clear of dangerous spirits but I wouldn't be surprised with a few watchers in that area.

Posted by: Slump Jan 14 2007, 09:36 PM

Do smoke grenades block Astral Sight?

If not, it looks like you're gonna have to find some bacteria-bombs. That is, the equivalent of a smoke grenades, but it's little tiny bacterias suspended in midair. It would probably cause less of a visibility modifier for those in the physical world, but completely block out astral, since they can't see through living things (or move through them)

Also, if you get out of the mages LOS, and dive into some bushes, the mages probably wouldn't be able to see you, and if your mage was doing that astral signature cleansing thing, they suddently have alot of places to look for you.

Posted by: Butterblume Jan 14 2007, 09:38 PM

In SR4, you can move through living things...

Posted by: Fortune Jan 14 2007, 09:52 PM

Posted by: Thane36425 Jan 14 2007, 11:17 PM

Several good points already raised. Basically, astral mages can't communicate with those around their meat body, they can't read street signs and can't use technological devices in the real world (so no phoning in using a public phone).

It is possible that a relay of mages could report locations. This has its own problems though. The mage shouldn't have any problem getting back to their body, but they might have trouble reporting locations if they don't have the map well memorized. When they go back to the hunt, they will have to find the runners all over again, which probably won't be easy, especially if they are moving. Most Corps won't have that many security mages to begin with and probably wouldn't put them all on one case since there could always be another attack some place else.

One way around this is to have a mage with an Ally Spirit. The mage leaves the ally behind and uses the mindlink to report the location in real time. If the mage loses track of where he is, he calls the ally to him. Then the ally materializes, reads streets signs and goes back to HQ.

One other way to evade is to go underground. If the mage follows you, they are hemmed in by the ground above them. The problem is that while it traps the enemy mage, it can also turn into a trap for the characters too.

Posted by: Thanee Jan 14 2007, 11:22 PM

Posted by: emo samurai Jan 15 2007, 03:30 AM

Free spirits are actually really rare. In Aztlan, a country that counts all the non-metahuman people in its population figures, has only 2% non-metahuman, and that's counting the shapeshifters and dragons. Of that, maybe 5% of them are free spirits.

Plus, I don't imagine that free spirits would do much hanging around in cities. They'll be bothered all the time by the random astrally projecting mages, if not outright disrupted. There has to be more mages randomly astrally projecting than free spirits, anyway.

Posted by: Jaid Jan 15 2007, 05:27 AM

you could always allow the purchasing of anchor foci. for example, anchor foci with a nice, high force, mana static in it. foci are astrally present as well, so they should theoretically be able to drop a mana barrier, or even a mana ball (astral grenades )

additionally, keep in mind that there are mages out there who provide spirits. this is just as true for the runners as it is for mr bigshot wageslave, and you can bet there are some magicians willing to sell the services of their conjured spirits. it probably won't be cheap, but if you do your homework and expect to need it, you should be able to buy it. even if not, an appropriate contact could get you a spirit sent to you (will presumably cost extra, since we're talking about two services; one to find you, one for you to use, and furthermore if you're in a high security warded area, you shouldn't waste your time or money).

so keep in mind that while magic is not available to the average mundane, it *is* available to a sufficiently rich mundane who wants it badly enough, albeit in limited form.

of course, getting either of those things into a warded facility is a bit tricky, but even if you're looking at something just to get rid of the trailing mage for a bit as soon as you step outside the wards, this should help a little.

Posted by: Serbitar Jan 15 2007, 12:04 PM

Posted by: Sir_Psycho Jan 15 2007, 12:42 PM

Why don't you get your magician to summon an elemental or spirit and use it's powers on the astrally projecting mages? If they combat the spirit, they'll take nasty physical drain, while the spirit nails them. Or you could get a spirit to use it's concealment power on your team.

Posted by: Serbitar Jan 15 2007, 12:50 PM

No more physical drain in astral space.

Posted by: Fortune Jan 15 2007, 12:51 PM

Posted by: Serbitar Jan 15 2007, 12:57 PM

No comment on that in SR4 I think. But there was one in SR3 (again IIRC) that they can speak the native language of the caster.

Posted by: Fortune Jan 15 2007, 01:48 PM

'Speak' does not necessarily equate to 'read' though.

Posted by: Serbitar Jan 15 2007, 02:52 PM

True, but I would definitley grant Spirits of Man the skills to do so (well its not a skill anymore in SR4).

Posted by: Fortune Jan 15 2007, 03:14 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 15 2007, 03:15 PM

Posted by: Fortune Jan 15 2007, 03:17 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 15 2007, 03:49 PM

SR4, page 181:

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 15 2007, 03:51 PM

Check the entry for Watchers in the Critter section.

SR4, page 295:

Posted by: Serbitar Jan 15 2007, 03:52 PM

Personally I think this feature (the summoner link) is a little (well, quite) overpowered, making astral security even more tight. Not that it needed to be made more efficent . ..

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 15 2007, 03:59 PM

We have a pair of magicians in my group that always summon a pair of watchers and team them up with the other (non-summoning) magician. This way each of them has secure communications with the other. In effect, it is very much a magical communicator and a cheap but somewhat less effective Mind Link since you do get your info third person (but with direct quotes and pictures as applicable).

Posted by: Fortune Jan 15 2007, 04:01 PM

I stand corrected, although I dislike the idea of a Watcher Commlink Networkâ„¢ quite intensely.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 15 2007, 04:06 PM

Posted by: Serbitar Jan 15 2007, 04:12 PM

That is not true. For this, you have hackers.
(Of course, runners have to avoid a lot of things and can not live joe normal everyday life, but thats adding to the atmosphere of the game. See my SGP in my sig for what I mean).

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 15 2007, 05:00 PM

Serbitar's SGP:

Posted by: Mistwalker Jan 15 2007, 05:15 PM

Who said anyone else in the Stuffer Shack had to know that you were robbing the place. You send a commlink message to the teller, allow him to see the gun. Get the cash, and your purchase, and walk out.
Several other clients would not have even noticed the robbery.

In the Intelligence community, it is known that large organizations have all the information they need to know about/stop anything. It is knowing what is important that is the problem.

Yes, it may be theoretically possible to track the guy who robbed the stuffer shack back to his place. Provided that you are willing to go thru the hasle of getting warrants to get access to the "footage" from all those cameras (provided that they still have it when you finally get around to asking them), not to mention the huge amount of manpower needed to scan all that footage, as you have to prove that you kept the subject in continous sight.

That is just an easy case. Imagine if a runner team did a hit on Mitsuhama in Seattle, and the escape path leads by the Aztec Pyramid. Do you think that Aztec will actually help out Mitsuhama? Not likely. That goes for smaller companies as well as the big corps.

If the criminals drive into the barrens, then that camera track feature is lost. They could have changed vehicles, still be in there, dropped the vehicle mask and driven back out, etc...

Drop some thermal smoke grenades at an intersection, drop or activate vehicle mask, drive away looking like one of the 20 cabs that were there. Now they have 21 vehicles to track.

I will admit, that if the crime is big enough, public enough, that the resources could be made available, but not even that guarantees that they will be able to track you.

By and large, wireless does not mean that Big Brother can and does see all.

Posted by: Cheops Jan 15 2007, 05:20 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 15 2007, 05:43 PM

Posted by: Serbitar Jan 16 2007, 12:12 AM

Posted by: Cheops Jan 16 2007, 12:38 AM

Posted by: 6thDragon Jan 16 2007, 12:58 AM

In my game we usually just go to a sensitive public transportation system, such as an airport. I think airports would be relatively accessible, assuming you are not sporting heavy weapons when you enter, and would have heavy astral security. But it has already been said, the best way to defeat astral security is to keep moving. Can anybody say road trip? Another option would be to go to any place that has a large amount of people and try to get lost in the crowd, such as a shopping mall, sporting event, or fair ground of some sort. This would not work if you are carrying active foci, or have sustained spells, but if everyone is normal enough it would probably work.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 16 2007, 01:34 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 16 2007, 01:36 AM

Posted by: 2bit Jan 16 2007, 02:55 PM

I haven't had to deal with shaking an astral tail in my game yet, surprisingly. . . without the search power being used against you, moving through crowded areas, going underground, through wards, and places with astral security should all hamper your shadow.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 16 2007, 06:23 PM

Crowded places can help or hinder, it depends on how well you can blend and what the locals are like. While it might help you to shake astral pursuers, it's going to increase the odds of physical or electronic ID systems coming into play. Standing in front of the light isn't always the best way to hide in the shadows.

Underground is useful when it's avaialble, but it is also limiting to your routes of escape. It may make your escape route much more predictable - NEVER assume that just becasue you're a 'runner you know the terrain better than the corp talents.

Wards and areas of astral security tend to be in the hands of the corps more than the 'runners. This is becasue such things are by design stationary. NEVER try to hold a stationary point no matter how hardened you think it is - the corps can always crack your nut if they want to.

Posted by: Thane36425 Jan 16 2007, 06:38 PM

Posted by: RunnerPaul Jan 16 2007, 06:41 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 16 2007, 07:53 PM

Posted by: Moon-Hawk Jan 16 2007, 07:55 PM

Yes. Check the official http://www.shadowrunrpg.com/resources/faq.shtml.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 16 2007, 08:03 PM

OK. It is interesting to note that the phrase "A physical anchor cannot move more than a few centimeters relative to the ward enclosure when the ward was created." is most certainly NOT the same wording that was used in Street Magic. I prefer the FAQ's version, but it's not a clarification as much as a reversal of the ruling.

Posted by: Serbitar Jan 16 2007, 08:06 PM

Hasnt the Street Magic Errata been released yet?

Posted by: Cheops Jan 16 2007, 08:12 PM

A force 10 is more than necessary for keeping away casual but it's main reason for being that high is because it provides a -10 penalty to all ritual spellcasting, and the Search power. It also takes a long time for wagemages to batter through it so we can avoid them until physical shows. Besides which it is pretty bad if the corp gets caught in a gun battle in a residence that they don't own so they don't usually assualt. Wait for us to leave.

Then again, in our games we've never had to worry about multiple wagemages following us. We play with less magic to try and fit in with the cyberpunk setting so it is usually 1 mage plus spirits. And then they don't risk astral tracking. They use search because you don't have to pay life insurance on spirits. Plus they can use trace evidence for ritual spellcasting such as clairvoyance or petrify.

Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Jan 16 2007, 08:42 PM

Still, the ultimate way to shake an astral shadow you can't loose using Stealth Skills is the knowledge of astrally secured public areas - like better shopping malls.

It's quite easy to loose the physical trackers there, too.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 16 2007, 09:29 PM

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 16 2007, 10:25 PM

Okay, a case study on Astrally Tracking criminals.

This grew so big I'm putting it in a spoiler so it does not bloat this place.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 16 2007, 11:15 PM

A few things I'd like to point out.

If the runners 'know' they have an astral tail, then they can very likely have exposed themselves astrally and can be attacked by astral opponents. The big problem with having astral pursuers is that you are often afraid to look into the astral to check and see what's following because you could get a face-full of mana before you know what's happening.

You won't need to stop to talk to physical security. That watcher you left with them will repeat every word you send to it verbatim in slightly delayed real-time.

Simple acts, such as reading a street sign, do not count against a spirit's services. This is clearly spelled out in Street Magic.

The mage can opt to simply send a bound spirit on Remote Service to follow you instead of pursuing himself. More likely, hell bring the spirit along. The spirit can alos sit there for the few minutes it take for the mage to go 'tag' his body and get back (I can't find anything saying how long you have to remain n your body before projecting again). This greatly extends the ticking clock so that 12 hours won't be long enough. The big spirit's telepathically linked too, so he can easily keep in touch with the mage for those few minutes.

How much money will they spend? If you're extracting someone important or taking something valuable, then you can bet that a few thousand is easily within the security mage's petty cash fund.

BTW, remember to integrate with physical security. Each time the watchers relay a new location fix to the security guys, that puts physical response (or satellite surveillance) that much closer. It alerts corp hackers to likely matrix areas to screw with you from as well (I'm not as well versed on the whole matrix thing in SR4, but I do know that everything is now a three front battle). In short, I hope the plot is favoring you...

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 16 2007, 11:35 PM

Okay, a mage can call his spirit to him, but it does not mean that it can suddenly go himself to his spirit. So at best he is forced to use astral tracking using his own link to the spirit on its remote service after it goes back to tag in.

Then you’re putting this wage mage into overtime.

You have to perform this service at least initially on every incursion, because you have to start immediately and you don’t know what the value of what they took is or even if they took something, it could have been sabotage. You can’t call the head office and ask if John Doe in engineering is worth a 10,000 pursuit, you have to start it on every incursion.

Reading a street sign is not a service. But as far as materializing spirits don’t like it and how long do you have to spend on astral detail before you start building up a reputation as a bad conjurer and start having spirits throw in their edge against you, balk at orders etc.

This is all still assuming the runners aren’t doing anything to hinder you and that they are just walking or driving around in circles. Once they start actively trying to shake you what do you do then?

Basically if you think this works then shadowruns don’t work. And the basic premise of the game is that shadowruns do work, often enough for people to go into it as a line of work and survive. Therefore there must be something that makes you’re perfect pursuit concept fail. I’m just giving you a few flaws, and every little layer of complication you add to get around one of these flaws makes it more costly and difficult.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 16 2007, 11:36 PM

At this point, if its something I really don't want to deal with overly much, especially for every run, then here's how I'd handle it:

PCs are trying to run around the city evading? Okay, roll Navigation. You have Magical Knowledge or Smuggling Knowledge that could help? Okay, roll that, too. Your awesome ride should help for some reason? Okay, roll Driving + Intuition + Handling. You're blasting away any and all astral forms you see? Okay, roll Magic + Spellcasting + applicable focii. What? You're too pretty to die? Okay, why not? Roll dice for that, too.

Roll it all together for one massive pool of dice. Total all the hits.

Now for security. I figure they've got to have a satalite network trying to hunt them down. Roll Data Search + Logic. You're astrally persuing, okay, roll Perception + Magic. Hacking their car? Hacking + exploit. You've got chokepoints all along the major highways? Police cars on patrol? An APB out? A helicopter in the sky? Expert riggers at the helm? I'd toss an extra die for each helicopter, chokepoint, and car that's specificaly looking for this group. Summoning a spirit? Cool, roll the force and add them in.

Roll this handful of dice, and total all hits.

If the security wins, they eventually find the runners. It takes about 10 minutes for each total hit the runner scored. The net hits are the number of grunts that converge on the player's location in the next scene. (A spirit can be substituted for one grunt per force rating, or an NPC prime runner for one Professional Rating per grunt if the astral mage persued directly).

I think that allows players to be clever, gives some hard and fast rules that everyone can abide by, handles it in a reasonable amount of time, and we know "what happens next".

(Note to players: The number of net hits you score is the number of reprimands, complaints, yellings, beatings, bad publicity trideo reports, and angry supervisors the chief of security has to deal with as fallout of this disasterous manhunt.)

Posted by: Cheops Jan 16 2007, 11:46 PM

I'm of the mind set that unless the run is very large or very splashy the corp will hand the case off to Lone Star. That way you can let stuff simmer for quite some while and then suddenly drop the hammer on the group. As they are running around trying to figure out who is harassing their contacts, taking shots at them, and reporting their every move to the Star, you let them find out that it is revenge from XYZ corp that they messed up several months ago.

Costs much less money, is less risky for corporate personnel, and isn't so public for the corp.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 16 2007, 11:59 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 17 2007, 06:05 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 17 2007, 06:11 AM

Posted by: cetiah Jan 17 2007, 07:01 AM

Posted by: Serbitar Jan 17 2007, 10:07 AM

SR is no heroic game. Runners are not heroes. They do not succeed where others dont. They have to earn everything.

I am quite emphazising this realism aspect in my game as much as possible. And contrary to happy I think it can be done in a consistent way. But you have to have experienced and paranoid players for this and you have to talk about these issues first and how the players are going to avoid this and that.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 17 2007, 01:11 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 17 2007, 03:36 PM

The only way we found to make sense of shadowrunning is to say that every corp maintaines its own stable of zeroes (deniable assets). Independents are rookies that have yet to be recruited. Most die in one double-cross or another before ever getting recruited. Once in a corps' stable, you are in for life - you are a company man with no real identity.

Now this doesn't really change things too much for the runner, but it does change the way runs go down. Now runners have the resources of a corp backing them, so they get satellite imagery, surveillance reports, wireless taps, cyber-surgery, hospitalization, etc. along with their corp playing interference with the competition once the run is underway and afterwards.

Is this really 'deniable'? Hell no - the corps will usually have a good idea who hit them. However, since all of the corps do it they tend to consider it 'couting coup' as long as the competiton stays within certain boundaries. One of the big boundaries is avoiding attracting the attentiion of government enforcement entities.

The big change for runners is that once the run is done, they are safe behind the aegis of their corporate masters. Sadly, they are really slaves to the corp and likely to be used and abused quite badly, but it beats being an independent that has no protection from retaliation by offended corps.

Why would corps strike back so hard at independents? Because they are wild cards and that makes them unpredictable and financially risky. Better to squash their nest and make them scurry to some corp (yours if they have what you need, but any corp is better than none) so that you can count on them playing by the rules of the great game.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 17 2007, 03:41 PM

Posted by: Serbitar Jan 17 2007, 04:07 PM

Happy: One question,

what exactly makes running impossible?

I think there is only one thing that could do this: Preemptive biometric observation of everything. And that is very unlikey.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 17 2007, 04:20 PM

Read my previous post. Independent operators - what most of us think of shadowrunners as being - don't make sense for the corporations to utilize. There is too much risk and the only thing the corps have to rely on is the runners' reps. What a load of crap!

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 17 2007, 04:24 PM

I think what bugs me the most is the impression that the shadowrunners have some form of 'union' that gives the runner community as a whole bargaining power with the corps. This isn't going to happen. The corps have decades of experience busting unions, especially one that can't even operate openly and has no legal protection.

All zeroes are still going to belong to someone.

Posted by: Serbitar Jan 17 2007, 04:28 PM

Well, this is not a technical problem, but a social one. This is too diffuse to discuss and you can always find reasons to make the one or the other plausible. including, but not limited to:

- deniability
- lower cost
- abuseability
- flexibility
- now permanent costs
- availability
- "moral" flexibility

And yes, I can see high level runners belonging to corps. But only few and in the range of million nuyen cyberware.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 17 2007, 05:42 PM

Posted by: Serbitar Jan 17 2007, 06:13 PM

Have fun owning a million nuyen SAM, or even mage, if he does not want to be owned.

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 17 2007, 06:18 PM

Shadowrun is science fiction. Now there are a variety of definitions of science fiction and I’ve read plenty of authors from LeGuin to Vonnegut describe what they believe it to be. I’ve come away with the idea that basically it is a premise from which a world follows.

In Shadowrun the premise is that there exists this subclass of people who are professional shadowrunners. Everything flows from that. The dystopian future vision that is corporate nationhood is taken as a corrolary of that premise, this is what it would take for this thing to exist. Every concept in shadowrun should use the premise as a yardstick to determine it’s validity.

Now if you’re not willing to accept the basic premise of the fictional world than I’m curious why you’re here.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 17 2007, 06:36 PM

Posted by: Serbitar Jan 17 2007, 06:41 PM

I have played Shadowrunners that start with nothing but their ware. Thats not so unusual.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 17 2007, 06:42 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 17 2007, 06:48 PM

Posted by: Serbitar Jan 17 2007, 06:49 PM

Well, thats what jammers, hackers and street docs are for.

Posted by: Cheops Jan 17 2007, 07:02 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 17 2007, 07:09 PM

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 17 2007, 07:13 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 17 2007, 07:16 PM

I liked everything about the neo-anarchists. It's good stuff that just isn't stressed at all anymore.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 17 2007, 07:19 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 17 2007, 07:25 PM

Posted by: cetiah Jan 17 2007, 07:44 PM

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 17 2007, 07:50 PM

Posted by: Cheops Jan 17 2007, 07:57 PM

Posted by: cetiah Jan 17 2007, 08:13 PM

Posted by: TheOneRonin Jan 17 2007, 08:51 PM

The corp/shadowrunner paradigm works as long as you keep a few things in mind.

#1 The corporate court forbids any overt actions (such as sabotage, extractions, property damage, etc.) amongs the corps of the world. Indeed, they can go so far as punish the offending corp. The need for corporate espionage has not died down by 2070 (indeed it has increased), so the demand for unaffiliated personnel capable of performing said acts is what creates the market for Shadowrunners.

#2 The almighty bottom line. This, probably more than anything else, is what keeps shadowrunners in business. To corporations, big and small, the MOST important thing is the bottom line. More often than not, tracking down the runners that just hit your facility is a waste of money. Doing that is like throwing good money after bad. Here is an example:

Runner group A hits corp B to steal/extract asset C. Runners engage onsite sec forces, defeat them, and escape. By the time Corp B gets it shit together, the runners have probably offloaded the asset and are long gone. Corp B can send sec teams to try and track down the runners. There is a cost with that. If the team finds the runners, they can try to capture them (very difficult, and very expensive), all the while operating ouside of their extra-territorial jurisdiction. And even if the corp does manage to grab the runners, there is no guarantee that they can recover asset C. And they still have to deal with local law enforcement not being happy about them riding around downtown in vans with armed goons crammed inside. Not to mention the PR fiasco if word of them getting hit gets out. All in all, it is in the corp's best interest to keep things quiet and cut their losses.

There will be exceptions to this, but they will be the exception, not the rule. A corp manager that goes on a power trip trying to hunt down the runners that humiliated his sec team will find himself without a job, and possibly without a heartbeat. He just cost the corp more money than what it lost from the run already.

#3 Extraterritoriality: Not all corps have this, but those that do have vast amounts of flexibility. They do not have to report any crimes committed onsite to the cops. They can fabricate any story they like for whatever happened during the run. Not getting law enforcement involved will usually keep the press out of the loop, and keeps the corp's image from being significantly damaged. Basically, it keeps the loses to a minimum.

All in all, these things contribute to the 2070s having a thriving shadow community.

Posted by: Cheops Jan 17 2007, 09:59 PM

Posted by: Cheops Jan 17 2007, 10:04 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 17 2007, 10:59 PM

Posted by: cetiah Jan 17 2007, 11:09 PM

Geez, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend. I'm just fascinated by the whole topic. I'm a student going back to school, studying english and economics towards a career working for the state department. I've spent the last couple years working as an administrative assistant for financial planners in southern California. Not an expert by any means; but I love talking about economics.

I feel like we sort of jumped scales here, XYZ is suddenly not a major corp but a smaller individual company or bank. Okay. Sorry, I think that was my fault.

Insurance is a gambling game with the odds heavily in your favor. But if you make $50 each month and one month, because of a shadowrun, you only make $10, then you've still incured a $40 loss. If this money is insured, that money is paid out of the collected premiums from the insurance company's various customers. That's still less profit that it would otherwise have occured. Someone has to pay it. If both companies are owned by Ares then Ares just lost $40 worth of assets, no matter what. Ares can't get the reduced value of these assets insured by GM Financial. That's what I meant.

Is there any reason not to assume that in most cases Ares is the insuring company?

But looking at it on the local scale, it doesn't seem right that all items should be insured 100% of their value 100% of the time. You have three things that basically need to be insured: real assets (security camera, doors, guards, etc.), assets with potential value (secret plans to the Criminore Prototype, the creative ingenious ideas of executive vice-chairman Donald D. Duke, etc.), and soon-to-be-existant liabiltiies (Mr Duke's therapy bills and pain and suffering compensation). This is potentially a huge list, but nothing that can't be prepared for, I suppose. There should be some kind of relationship between the value (in nuyen per year) of an item, the amount of items insured, and the risk assessment of each item to determine what percentage of its value is covered and under what conditions, but hell if I know what it is. But insurance is ultimately a game between two players. Someone who gets EVERYTHING insured is very insecure and would be losing a lot of money (assuming most of the insurance items weren't claimed), compared to someone who didn't pay the insurance (assuming their items were similiarly unharmed) and invested the saved money into personnell training, land, and capital goods. It doesn't seem like you would ever reach AA or AAA status that way, but the insurance company might...

Of course, then your a powerful and profitable corp and you get hit with a shadowrun earlier than you expected and suddenly lose sooooo much and get bumped down before person A.

There must be a point somewhere in between where corp C has found the proper balance for their company to get ahead of both A and B.




Sorry if I offended. I love this conversation, really, and found your posts very delightful.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 17 2007, 11:18 PM

HappyDaze, it's cheaper to hire a group of specialists when you need them on a project-to-project basis rather than keep and maintain your own team of specialists that would cost more to maintain than their actual value. Why is this hard to explain?

People feel the same way today about all sorts of stuff. Take, for example, hairdressers. Its cheaper for most of us to go pay a hairdresser than to invest the time and resources to dress it ourselves or hire a full time hairdresser at our home. That doesn't stop some people (and companies) from getting their own hairdresser, but there's still a profound market for freelance hairdressers. And because they can sell to more than one client, there's usually more money for the hairdresser in freelance work, even if they charge less.

Independant contractors in any business isn't always a weird stretch.

Wow, this almost parallels the insurance post on the other side of the coin...

Posted by: Cheops Jan 17 2007, 11:30 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 17 2007, 11:31 PM

Posted by: Ophis Jan 17 2007, 11:38 PM

Yes however the need for plausable deniability if a team gets caught means that having your balck ops guys on your pay roll is a liability. Ergo you keep them off the books natch, but then the costs go up covering the constant trail. So you just cut them loose and hire from a freelnace market that could be working for anyone.

Posted by: Cheops Jan 17 2007, 11:40 PM

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 17 2007, 11:46 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 12:06 AM

My assumptions are internally consistant - something that cannot be said for the 'popular' SR milieu. It just doesn't make sense for so much of the world to keep armed mercenary/terrorists in business with very little control. It really doesn't make sense when it can be so easily avoided. But sure, I can accept that my views create a less fun world to play in. No one wants to play a trapped wage rat even if you get to do everything you did as a runner and do it better. That lack of freedom can be a game killer.

Of course, I can also play D&D even while suspending my disbelief that scores of massive underground complexes exist that have no ecology to support the vast monster zoos that live in them. Sometimes the way that makes sense makes for a poor game.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I think Shadowrun is a fantastic setting for gameplay - but really really lacking in logical coherence. IOW, welcome back to 'because the plot says so' and 'it's the core premise - it's unquestionable' as complete answers.

Posted by: Jaid Jan 18 2007, 12:06 AM

also happydaze, keep in mind that the HTR teams you send after the independants (because let's face it, you can't send regular security forces to track down the average runner) are going to face losses. expensive losses. and HTR teams get payed more in the first place. add on to that hospital bills and life insurance, and it adds up fast.

furthermore, they have to send these HTR teams into non-corp territory; which means they aren't allowed to just go kill people randomly.

i find it questionable (as has been mentioned) that in a situation as cutthroat as the corps (especially at the upper levels) are, that people would be working together. more likely, everyone is either trying to get someone else's job or trying to protect themselves from losing their own. this goes ten times as much for intercorporate affairs; why should Ares risk their HTR teams (expensive, remember) to track down a team of runners that AZT? why should Ares care? why should Ares assume any of the risk? especially why should Ares risk their public image by potentially being involved in a gunfight where dozens of people are injured, massive property damage is incurred, and a few people are outright killed (on non-corp property, too... which means they get to explain it to the government as well).

furthermore, we have organisations existing now which will be making an effort to keep the spotlight out of the shadows... you think the Yaks or the Mafia are going to tolerate the megas constantly coming into their territory and disrupt things?

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 12:09 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 12:10 AM

Posted by: Cheops Jan 18 2007, 12:13 AM

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 18 2007, 12:15 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 12:15 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 12:19 AM

Posted by: Cheops Jan 18 2007, 12:24 AM

Posted by: Jaid Jan 18 2007, 12:27 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 12:29 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 12:33 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 12:35 AM

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 18 2007, 12:35 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 12:38 AM

Optionally, the corp may just give the necessary information to the government and let them eliminate the terrorists with gunships, drones, or whatever else the military is packing.

Posted by: Jaid Jan 18 2007, 12:41 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 12:43 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 12:45 AM

Posted by: Cheops Jan 18 2007, 12:52 AM

I don't know...so far Shadowrun as written seems far more internally consistent and consistent with the real world than HD's world does. Although with his governmental/corporation worldwide goon squad conspiracy theory his world seems to make a lot of sense to him. I think I'll stop responding to his posts and hopefully he'll go bug some other thread.

So for astral tracking you need either a mage or a spirit. Let's assume the security force (private or contractual) has SOPs that state only spirits can be risked for astral tracking.

Any ward whatsoever prevents a watcher from seeing what you are doing. Watchers are also pretty stupid (Logic 1, Intuition 1) so they can be easily duped. If you group can't evade one you shouldn't run.

That leaves regular spirits both following and using search. Ignore Force 1 and 2 spirits for the same reason as Watchers.

Tracking: At force 3 they at least have normal intelligence. So I believe that gives them Force x2 dice for their tracking test. Depending on time of day as well as estimated chase time the security is probably using bound spirits so let's say that Force 6 is too expensive (that's 2400 nuyen a pop). So we're looking at 6 - 12 dice. A group probably has at least one person who can stealth decently, so at least 6 dice. The best thing to do would be to go into crowded areas like people have said. Busy highways, traffic jams, or crowded sidewalks (if on foot only!) should be worth at least a -1 or -2 to the tracker. Maybe conjure up a spirit for conceal for another -3 dice. Suddenly it is 6 vs 7. Use edge. (May not work if spirit has same signature as intruding mage can't remember rules right now).

Search: Again probably best pool is 12 dice. A force 6 ward reduces to 6. Force 10 reduces to 2. Gonna take a long time to find.

Posted by: Jaid Jan 18 2007, 12:54 AM

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 12:54 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 12:56 AM

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 12:59 AM

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 01:03 AM

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 18 2007, 01:04 AM

Posted by: Jaid Jan 18 2007, 01:04 AM

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 01:10 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 01:14 AM

Wow! Lots of good stuff!

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 01:22 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 01:27 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 01:29 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 01:31 AM

Posted by: bait Jan 18 2007, 01:54 AM

There are serious limitations to astral projecting magic users.

1.) Theres not alot of them.
2.) Their meat body becomes a tempting host for spirits.
3.) Their magic rating in hours is how long they can project for.
4.) Astral space is occupied by other mages and a variety of things that might not have the mages best interests in mind.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 01:55 AM

Posted by: hyzmarca Jan 18 2007, 02:11 AM

Plausible deniability. It is why shadowrunners exist in the first place.

Let us say that the United States wants to detonate a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Munition at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Capital_International_Airport for some reason. They could send uniformed American soldiers to do it but that presents a problem as it would certainly incite a nuclear war with China. Likewise, sending undercover American operatives to complete is dangerous due to the fact China could trace them back the United States. After all, if someone is an employee then there must be some record of that person's employment somewhere.
However, if they hired mercenaries to do it and paid those mercenaries in cash then the trail would stop with the mercenaries. At worst, China would torture and kill a bunch of mercenaries that the United States doesn't care about anyway.

The Megacorps are world superpowers and shadowruns are no less than acts of war. The purpose of hiring freelance runners is to insulate the hiring corporation from retaliation if the run is discovered by the target. Megacorps can use shadowrunners to do things to each other that would earn the offender an immediate Omega Order (do not pass go do not collect 200 ) otherwise.
You can never get that kind of insulation if you use in-house operatives. It is possible to bury payments to freelance deniable assets in with other operating expenses such that the target and the authorities can't conclusively prove that you hired them even if he is captured and talks but it is impossible to erase all evidence of a permanent employee. Hell, in most cases the shadowrunner doesn't even know who he is working for. It is difficult for an employer to hide its identity from a permanent employee.
Really, the insulation provided by deniable freelancers is worth the associated risks.
Whatever costs one might incur from using freelancers, the cost of retaliatory thor-shotting that will be incured from using in-house assets to commit espionage and assassination against rival megacorps is going to be far greater.


Shadowrunners can operate because they are a commonly-known secret. Everybody knows about shadowrunners but nobody knows about shadowrunners. All concerned willfully turn blind eyes and pretend that there is no such thing because it is in their best interest to do so. By doing so that can continue to use shadowrunners themselves and they can continue to avoid global thermonuclear war with those who use shadowrunners against them. It prevents business as usual from turning into a mutual assured destruction just because both sides have to save face. So long as the assets are deniable, corporations can be attacked by other corporations without losing face and they can attack other corporations without inviting full-scale retaliation.

Edit The "West Virginia Prom" analogy doesn't work because the corporations are not in bed with each other. They are, in fact, murderously competitive. The Corporate Court and corporate law exists to prevent full-scale overt global and inevitably nuclear war by keeping the conflict in the shadows. However, AAAs and AAs can't just turn a blind eye to damage done by other corporations. Doing so would make them look weak and invite both covert physical attacks and overt financial attacks from all of their competitors. If they are made to lose face then they must retaliate. However, there is no lost face when one is attacked by terrorists and criminals, no more than would be lost if one were injured by a natural disaster. For this reason obfuscation is key.

Posted by: Sir_Psycho Jan 18 2007, 02:22 AM

Damn right.

Unrelated: Happydaze, stop quadruple-posting, seriously. Use the edit button.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 02:36 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 02:43 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 02:45 AM

cetiah,

I'll get back to your points tomorrow. They are quite helpful in getting me to smooth off the edges of my views on SR. Thank you.

Posted by: Jaid Jan 18 2007, 04:17 AM

as was noted elsewhere, incidentally, the megas don't have a problem with terrorists really. not only do they buy gear made by the corps, but any damage they do has to be corrected by (you guessed it) the corps. most of which corps are either part of a mega, or invested in by a mega, and therefore the megacorps all benefit from terrorist actions.

and like i said, i can't for the life of me imagine why the corps would just pretend the other guy didn't do it. especially if they can get proof (and let's face it, with the kind of loyalty you get out of your runners under your system, the runner is probably going to choose "testify in court against your previous employer and we'll keep you alive, and you work for us" over "we will throw you into a hole and reprogram you with psychotropic IC until you don't even know who you are, then you can work for us" if they ever get captured.

furthermore, like i said earlier, if most people have corp sponsorship like you suggest, then how does the corp that got hit know to chase down the independant? the corp isn't gonna blow thousands of dollars sending out HTRs to track down runners when the runners are protected by another corp, but there's no way for the corp to know until they've caught the runners. therefore, the corps, in your world, would never chase the runners, and therefore the independant runner could be much, much more common than you suggest.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 04:23 AM

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 04:46 AM

Posted by: hyzmarca Jan 18 2007, 04:57 AM

Actually, for maximum deniability you'd want a double-blind system. You don't know who you are hiring and the people you are hiring don't know who you are. A properly implemented double-blind system cannot be compromised by either side.
Shadowrun doesn't have this because of the Johnson-Fixer system. However Johnsons may use throwaway identities for further obfuscation, which would approximate a single-blind system.

In the case of an in-house ghost team, your still damaged by the fact that your personnel must know who they are taking orders from. They can't just take orders from any random dude, unlike a freelancer. As a result, a simple mind probe of an in-house team will lead back to their employers every time. A mind-probe of a freelancer may as well lead back to Richardo Montalban.
If your in-house assets are blind to the identities of their handlers then they may as well be freelance because anyone can hire them, anyway.

Likewise, even if the team is not caught team rotation is important for identity obfuscation. If the same team continually does jobs for the same person then it is possible to determine the identity of the employer through mathematical analysis of the targets. Given enough data, it is possible to analyze the missions taken by any finite pool of operatives in such a way as to determine the identity of their employer.
The only way to protect against such analysis is to choose operatives at random from a publicly available pool. So long as the pool is public and the choice is truly random, it is impossible to seperate the jobs of one employeer from those of another without any degree of certainty. One might choose to analyze the missions themselves for patterns and hope to match them to the hiring parties, but due to quirks in the way that different teams carry out the missions it is very difficult to match specific mission characteristics to an employer and impossible to do so beyond a reasonable doubt. This is further complicated by the fact that some types of missions are simply standard and standardized such that everyone who contracts for such a mission would specify the same or similar parameters.


Also, one shuld not forget that not every corporation is a Megacorp. Only AAAs and AAs are extraterritorial and there are only 10 AAAs in the world at any given time as mandated by corporate law. Lesser corporations, do not have the resources to have teams of paramilitary operatives on call 24/7 at every corner of the world. While lesser corporations can't contend for CC seats they do have a say in corporate law and they outnumber AAs and AAAs even if they can't out gun them. Even the litt-old-lady who owns the mom&pop backery across the street might just need to have a rival murdered every now and then.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 05:16 AM

Posted by: Jaid Jan 18 2007, 05:22 AM

Cetiah, i wasn't arguing that the corps *can't* find the freelancers, i was arguing that it's too expensive to chase them down once they've finished the run unless you know they are freelancers. sure, you can send out your private team of runners, or HTRT, or whatever, but if 99.9% of all runners are corp sponsored, then 99.9% of all HTRTs/private runners/etc are wasted resources (well, to be fair, less than that, but high enough that it's not worth the effort). unless you know in advance that someone is not corp sponsored, it's not worth chasing them.

and the freelance team can only betray you if you know who they are. this is why you maintain an extra layer or two (or more) between you and the freelancers. they can't betray you if they don't know who you are. sure, they can tell what your mission is, but it's gonna be hard for you to program your private stable of runners to accomplish anything without somehow knowing what their mission is.

as far as your born and bred corp army, i should point out that it would be awfully difficult to deny those assets, since you've raised them since they were born. it would be even harder to conceal who they work for, and whether or not they want to talk, they will talk. furthermore, what you're proposing will be pretty much a biological version of drones. you may as well just make a mechanical version, since a drone with response 6 pilot 6 + applicable autosofts and necessary toys built in is cheaper than training a sammy and installing wired/synaptic 2. you may as well also buy an agent 6 and put it on a commlink attached to that drone to replace the hacker as well. and maybe put some of those plants that create background count (get that count as high as you can, of course) to negate the magic advantage, especially when added to a potentially higher OR (highly processed objects, including drones, are or 4+, not just 4... i would anticipate deliberately increased OR if possible). (and use tech versions of relevant spells... holograph projector/ruthenium polymers for illusion, make the drone fly instead of levitate, armor the drone physically instead of magically, advanced sensors instead of detection spells, psychotropic IC instead of mental manipulations, and so forth)

now then, for the face, well... if it's possible to get a skillsoft for social skills, stands to reason you can get an autosoft for that too. a decent humanoid drone should be able to act as a face, if not as well as a dedicated face adept with tailored pheromones, then still pretty decently. 10 dice is not bad, at least. heck, i don't see why you couldn't theoretically have a version of tailored pheromones in the drone even.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 05:42 AM

Posted by: hyzmarca Jan 18 2007, 05:45 AM

The problem is that many shadowruns (most matrix runs, in fact). In order to have communication from the inside to the outside then someone on the inside must know how to communicate with the outside. If someone knows how to communicate then you get spoof those communications by attacking that guy and forcing him to give up his secrets. If the corporate assets are blind to the identities of their masters and communicate via dead-drop or similar then it is possible to spoof communications and commandeer them for your own purposes.
In this way, a team that is blind to their sponsors is the some as a freelance team except that there is far less incentive for enemies to compromise your communications with freelance teams and probably some incentive for the enemies to not compromise such communications.

As for " not advertising when they are sent out on runs" this is unnecessary because there are these things called security cameras and some people even have these things called eyes. Unless the team perfectly avoids leaving evidence (no prints, no DNA, Cameras disabled, all witnesses killed, all shell casings removed, all bullets dug out of the victim's skulls, and etc.)there will be enough evidence to determine that two runs were done by the same team even if there is no enough evidence to determine the identity of that team. However, once you know where they are, who they hit, and what kind of equipment they have it is possible to deduce their identities with some effort even if they are SINless. More importantly, it is possible to determine who benefits from the runs that they were involved in.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 06:25 AM

Posted by: hyzmarca Jan 18 2007, 07:39 AM

Posted by: Cheops Jan 18 2007, 06:28 PM

Posted by: Cheops Jan 18 2007, 06:34 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 07:11 PM

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 18 2007, 07:31 PM

Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Jan 18 2007, 07:36 PM

Nice threadnapping.

CD has the official answers to the question 'Why are Shadowrunners needed'.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 08:20 PM

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 09:05 PM

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Jan 18 2007, 09:35 PM

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 09:37 PM

Posted by: Charon Jan 18 2007, 09:50 PM

It depends on your interpretation of astral movement but it's arguably possible to lose an astral tail by moving faster than the mage's "walking" rate.

When the mage is moving at superspeed he has to "imagine" himself at the location and then travels so fast he can't perceive his environment while travelling.

So if you travel faster than his astral "walking speed" and in an erratic fashion that prevent him from anticipating your trajectory and thus keep projecting at a point you will have to cross, you could lose the tail.

It used to be an easier prospect in SR3... Now the "walking" speed is 100 meter/turn! It an even more drastic increase in speed than that of the running troll!

Still, some vehicle can move substantially faster so what you need is great rigger that can drive at break neck speed in an urban environment. It probably helps to quickly heads toward one of the barrens ; less electronic coverage and higher magical background.

You might even cultivate some contact amongst a wizgang and drive toward them if you fail to shake the tail.

You could also set up ambushes if you plan your escape route ahead. If you run through a tunnel you can predict exactly where your potential tail would have to go trough and you could have set up a surprise ahead of time (Kind of expensive in or karma depending on what you planned). A variant is to drive to an area that you could have cased with astral barrier ahead of time, an area where you can swiftly change vehicles and that has some traffic.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 09:52 PM

I lost you somewhere in the alphabet soup of that last post.

I guess "This game is stupid anyway." - while a gross simplification - is the way I feel about Shadowrun's universe (I like the mechanics).

As for the rest, there was some discussion going on regarding corporate teams by people other than myself (this was the A vs. B thing), so I'm not quite the only one talking about a variation from the norm.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 09:56 PM

All of that has a good chance of shaking astral pursuit, but consider that:

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 09:57 PM

Posted by: hyzmarca Jan 18 2007, 10:15 PM

There is one surefire way to escape astral pursuit: use a suborbital.

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Jan 18 2007, 10:18 PM

diving into a body of water large enough to pop up somwhere out of sight could help as well.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 10:21 PM

Posted by: Jeremiah Legacy Jan 18 2007, 10:23 PM

All right kids, everybody's talking and arguing about corporate cooperation. This was address in Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations." Allow me to summarize, as I agree with him.

Businesses could very easily control society by cooperating to keep prices high and wages low. Thus, every business makes more profit. However ...

They are too dishonest to do that. Even if they made such an agreement, someone will lower prices just a little bit to bring in customers. Someone would raise their wages just a little bit more to bring in better workers. Then the others would respond by raising their wages or lowering their prices.

Now, let's bring this into Shadowrun. Ares makes guns. Lone Star patrols the streets. Wuxing deals in transport and talismongering. NeoNET handles the Matrix. Renraku makes software, hardware and security.

Ultimately, these corps need denialbe assets; both as people to do the dirty work and as customers.

Someone else said it, but it bears repeating: corps will screw each other over for money, even if they are not in direct competition. At the very least, when another corp is hit, "Not my problem," is the phrase that fits.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 10:23 PM

Posted by: Moon-Hawk Jan 18 2007, 10:25 PM

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Jan 18 2007, 10:26 PM

yes , "if", in which case, the "fleer" could counter the same way, assuming they're of a tradition that can summon water elementals/spirits and has one bound.

Posted by: Thane36425 Jan 18 2007, 10:47 PM

Posted by: Cheops Jan 18 2007, 10:51 PM

If you just want to talk about straight out running somewhere there are two safe bets in Seattle--the Glow Zone and the Ork Underground.

I almost always end up with a Malcolm Ork wannabe who takes OU contacts and the Glow is easy to deal with if you are anticipating fleeing there. Most cities in SR seem to have an area that makes mages cringe thinking about going in there.

Does anyone have any anecdotal evidence for escaping astral tracking?

Posted by: eidolon Jan 18 2007, 11:18 PM

FWIW, the norm here is to use one post regardless of the number of points you're addressing. While it's not a "rule", people aren't likely to miss your responses due to your post being long (in case you're worried about it).

Posted by: Charon Jan 18 2007, 11:35 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 11:43 PM

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 11:59 PM

Posted by: Charon Jan 19 2007, 12:41 AM

Posted by: toturi Jan 19 2007, 01:30 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 02:32 AM

You guys don't have to defend your use of super-cars (and, super-tricked out weapons I'll bet). You just have a different style of play than I do. In my game, you would suffer for taking actions that would stand out like that, but you're not in my game.

Like I said in another thread, we scrap equipment and make sure we get paid enough to replace it. Dropping/swapping SINs doesn't amount to squat if they still recognize your signature equipment. It's not like they can't correlate information. I also assume that the 'average' investigator is pretty damn good at their job - many people prefer that corps/cops/whatever are bumbling idiots, but we don't play that way.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 02:40 AM

Posted by: jervinator Jan 19 2007, 03:00 AM

Here is my take on it. How many people take their uberwagen out grocery shopping? Having an identifiable, unique vehicle isn't necessarily bad. However you also sometimes need discrete and/or disposable transportation. That is why two of my groups PCs learned to do the "gone in 60 seconds" thing. Of course car-jacking is always an option, but not really subtle.

My PCs find themselves in lots of situations. Some need chrome, some need speed, some need brains, and some just need style and tact. They seem to have developed the knack of using high-end custom gear when needed and knowing when to use disposable gear and leave their precious valuables home.

As for signature equipment, anybody savvy enough to notice that usually has your Modus Operandi down well enough that the disposability of your gear isn't a big issue.

Posted by: cristomeyers Jan 19 2007, 03:06 AM

I don't think that the law enforcement would necessarily have to be bumbling idiots, but they would be over-worked. Certain details would probably get lost in the no-man's land of information swamping the investigators. Unless the characters do something particularly grandiose, there's an even chance at just getting lost in the shuffle.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 03:28 AM

Posted by: cristomeyers Jan 19 2007, 03:38 AM

Agreed. But the number of cases each of those teams has to work would also go up exponentially. Just population increase alone would double the average workload of an investigator, add in all the new types of crime: magic-based, mindrape, etc, and that's a lot of cases to spread around. Even the best can get worn down.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 19 2007, 04:09 AM

This exact issue was something I had trouble with in my first game session and I put the game away for the next 4 years. I made a subtle face-like computer expert (not a decker, though, and couldn't deal with IC) but who was really good at finding and manipulating public information, had BBS boards as contacts, and had all of the skills and equipment necessary to make basic fake SINs. He was also very good at deception and getting information out of people, one way or the other. My concept was that he was a brilliant investigator and economist working for a corporation. Stuff went wrong that I won't go into, and he fled to another country for awhile where he bribed a gang for protection. After five years of living in the streets, he's come back to Seattle looking to get revenge against those that ruined his life. He's not a street sam. He's not a decker. His best weapon is a pistol and I had to be talked by the GM into giving him some basic armor, and I took the time to read the cover rules very careful with the idea that I would play smart and subtle to keep this guy alive.

Another character built his street sam with a luxery lifestyle. We collaberated for a little bit and decided I worked for him as the head of his estate, using my information-gathering abilities to keep him out of trouble. He was running for governor and the last thing he needed was his "secret" getting out in public.

The third player decided to play a freelance combat mage with a squatter lifestyle. We didn't really have much use for him. I tried to talk him into living on the estate, but he refused.

I really loved this pair of characters and was really looking forward to the game, although I didn't really know the rules very well beyond reading Virtual Realities 2.0 (my first Shadowrun book).

You can guess what this game was like. It was hell on the GM, and he refused to play anymore after the first session and the type of game that was run made no sense for out characters whatsoever, and I was really looking forward to getting my patron elected to Governor as the longterm campaign plot.

We basically handed the GM a rich powerful little setting with highly developed characters, tons of plot hooks, and got spit back at us because it "wasn't Shadowrun". But it was; or rather, it could have been. That could have been an awesome game; but the players and GM weren't on the same page.

It's important to be open to different styles and to understand how things work within the "rules" under a given style.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 19 2007, 04:51 AM

I'm thinking of constructing a Fallout Phase of the game to manage downtime a little better for my game. Players could choose one action per week of downtime after the conclusion of a run, such as "Healing", "Training", "Socializing", "Working", "Research", etc. In addition, the GM may roll fallout actions for each week that passes in downtime for major factions or important characters that the players are still contending with, most notably Lone Star.

I haven't playtested any of this yet.


Mentat Analysts
GM Fallout Action
Lone Star has special analysts whose only job is to sift through tons of data. Their brains work as mental filters that can link seemingly irrelevant data together to form a grand puzzle, showing them a glimpse of the big picture. Like diviners of old would stare at old runes or crystal balls, these masters of information spend days studying crime reports, news feed, and surveillance information, letting it seep into their brain to form a big picture.

Choose one recent shadowrun. Add up the total Notoriety scores of all runners involved in that run and roll that many dice. Subtract one die for each "Low" or "High" lifestyle or two dice for each "Street" or "Luxury" lifestyle.

The number of hits equals "exposure" for the character with the lowest lifestyle. Reduce the character's highest rating fake SIN by a number of rating points equal to the "exposure" result. If the fake SIN falls to 0 rating or less, the character is "Arrested". If arrested, All Fake SINs are destroyed, and the character gets a Criminal SIN and a point of Notoriety.


Field Investigators
GM Fallout Action
Lone Star has a powerful network of eyes and ears throughout the streets and their expert investigators have some rather exotic methods of finding out what people know. Add to that a healthy dose of intimidation and interrogation, and they can follow a path right out to you as easily as any Mr Johnson can.

Choose one recent shadowrun, and one runner that was running it. Add up the "Connections" ratings of all contacts he knows. Add up the "Loyalty" of all contacts and subtract this total from the total Connections. Roll this many dice.

The number of hits equals "exposure" for this character with the lowest lifestyle. Reduce the character's highest rating fake SIN by a number of rating points equal to the "exposure" result. If the fake SIN falls to 0 rating or less, the character is "Arrested". If arrested, All Fake SINs are destroyed, and the character gets a Criminal SIN and a point of Notoriety.

In addition, the character must immediately discard one contact with a Loyalty rating lower than the amount of hits that were scored.



Interrogation
Intimidating psychopaths, electric chairs, addictive stimulants, lie detectors, detection spells, bound spirits, bad breath... you name any interrogation tool you can think of and Lone Star's got it. And now they've got you, too...

This action can only be taken if one of the players is currently "Arrested". Roll an opposed interrogation check against that character. The number of hits equals "exposure" for one of the character's companions. The player can choose which of his fellow runners takes the exposure.

The player can add dice to the GM's interrogation roll to receive a bonus to the bribery check of his next "Arrested" action. The amount of dice given can not exceed the character's Charisma.

Reduce the selected character's highest rating fake SIN by a number of rating points equal to the "exposure" result. If that character's fake SIN falls to 0 rating or less, the character is "Arrested". If arrested, All Fake SINs are destroyed, and the character gets a Criminal SIN and a point of Notoriety.



Arrested
Player Fallout Action

A character that has been arrested by Lone Star must take no fallout actions, except Arrested actions. When a character is rested, he begins with a Red Tape score of 4.

A character's Red Tape score is the threshold for any Bribery checks he makes. Success indicates he is no longer arrested. If an interrogation was conducted this turn, and the character gave voluntary dice to the GM for the interrogation check, he may add that number of dice to his bribery check.

Roll a number of dice equal to the character's Notoriety plus Red Tape. Any hits increase Red Tape by that amount. When Red Tape equals 10, he has been turned over to Corporate interests. The character is effectively gone from play at this point.

Prior to this, other players may attempt to bail out that character. The GM is encouraged to provide the players with sample opportunities to extract that character without a full assault on Lone Star's jail, such as an opportunity strike against a prisoner transfer vehicle, a court trial, community service, etc. Finding out enough information to conduct such a raid requires standard use of legwork rules, using Red Tape as a threshold.

Posted by: Mistwalker Jan 19 2007, 07:10 AM

HappyDaze, A few questions and observations.

1) Why is organized crime still flourishing now? Why haven't the governments eradicated it? Why hasn't the US gov raised, trained a bunch of Colombians to do a massive, one day strike against the leaderships of the Cartels, a one day blitz where they kill everyone in the houses, production centers, etc...
The resources are there, they could do it. But it hasn't happened. I think that it won't happen either. The same for Corps being able to stamp out all the independants.

2) If your "Zeros" are loyal only due to cortex bombs, are badly treated, then you are setting yourself up for several falls.
- Some corps will have their zeros go after those cortex bombs codes, and voila, your 200+ zeros are all dead, and you are at least 2 years away from having new zeros.
- Your zeros would spend a fair bit of time and effort to find their cortex bomb codes, to change them, so that they don't work, but that they know when someone tried to kill them. These are armed and dangerous people, you made them so, and if they have a hate on for you, and nothing to lose, you are going to get hurt (even if it is only lost resources).
- Who watches your zeros, to make sure that they stay loyal, behave, etc...

3) It is a gentleman's game, only as long as everyone plays by the rules.
- Joe, zero team controller, has just had his two kids killed by another corps zero team, they were collateral damage. Let's say that he wasn't married to the woman, who was married to someone else. No link from Joe to the kids. Joe wants revenge. He knows which corp did it, so sends in his zero team to take out as much of the board of directors of the other corps. Other corp survivors "know" which zeros hit them, and a war has started.

4) The freelancers would get their training from organized crime, or governements. Smiling Vito got greedy and the Capo had him killed. You were part of Smiling Vito's entourage, so you move on to greener pastures before the Capo can look your way. Or, you are a special operative in the government. Last of went bad, you were betrayed, or not backed up, or left for dead, etc... You are now a freelancer.

5) How would the Corps know where and who the freelancers are? If they are lending out their zeros to smaller corps to keep costs down.... And who says that the zero team handler is reporting all loaner missions to his bosses?

6) Corps are not unified behind their own management. So how can you say that they will be unified amongst themselves.

7) It is cheaper to use freelancers than it is to have zero or corp teams. No training, gear, medical, death benifits cost, nor are you paying them while they are not working.

Had more, but it's time to feed the baby.

Posted by: toturi Jan 19 2007, 07:16 AM

Posted by: Ravor Jan 19 2007, 07:35 AM

You know, a quick question for whomever it was that suggested that if a corp needed Zeroes that they didn't have themselves they would sub-contract the job out to another Corp, perhaps even one that specializes in Shadowruns, how exactly is such a Corp any different then a Fixer that uses a stable of Freelance talent?

Also, to echo a point already mentioned, exactly where are the smaller Corps who can't really afford the expense of these Zero Teams going to go when they need a Shadowrun done?

Where is the Mob, Triads, ect going to go?

Or how about your friendly eco-terrorist group down the street?

What about the corrupt city offical or even a company man looking to shove his way up the corperate ladder?

Now don't get me wrong, I fully believe that the Megas should and do keep at least a few highly trained Black-Op Teams on hand for the most secure jobs, but I think that it is extremely silly to think that the Megas would waste their time and money by sending the best of the best on your typical Shadowrun or would spend the money necessary to waste any Freelance Talent that the various non-Mega Players would need to tap whenever they needed a Shadowrun done. (And if you think that the smaller players would trust a Mega with something like asking to borrow one of their Zero Teams, then I think you need to rethink human nature.)

Posted by: cetiah Jan 19 2007, 09:20 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 12:46 PM

Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Jan 19 2007, 12:49 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 01:42 PM

Posted by: toturi Jan 19 2007, 02:24 PM

Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Jan 19 2007, 03:00 PM

Posted by: Ravor Jan 19 2007, 04:43 PM

Posted by: Moon-Hawk Jan 19 2007, 05:12 PM

So much talk about hunting down freelancers. Sorry if this has been brought up before, but:
What are the conditions that would make someone skilled enough to hunt the runners down actually want to do so? If someone shoots your friend, you go after the person who shot your friend, not the gun they used.
Just to clarify, in this analogy the runners are the gun. They are a tool. The enemy corporation is the shooter, they're the ones with motive.
If runners steal your valuable prototype, you chase them like hell until they hand the prototype over to the Johnson. Then why would you kill them? What do you gain? Even if you find them they don't know who they were working for, that's the point of the Johnson. So what do you do if you find them? Hire them for your next run, of course; they're obviously skilled!
The only time a corp has a reason to hunt runners down is if they have reason to believe that a particular group of runners is targeting them specifically.
LS isn't hunting runners for antics pulled on AA property, because the AAs don't report it.
LS only gets involved if it's small-time runners running against smaller corps, or if the violence spills out into the streets.
LS has limited resources, and they have a contract, so say they have two sets of criminals that they know about and need to catch. One set is some small-time idiot who shot somebody or knocked over a liquor store and made the news. The other is a group of runners who hit a AAA facility, which never made the news and was never reported by the corp, who doesn't want to admit any losses. They go after the idiot who made the news, because that's what will get their contract renewed.

If you're running a terrorist campaign, or you're driving down public streets using heavy ordnance you're damn well going to have someone hunting you down.
But between extraterritoriality keeping all the best information away from Lone Star, and the "nothing personal" aspect of most shadowruns, there is very little benefit to be had by finding most runners.

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 19 2007, 05:23 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 05:34 PM

Posted by: Moon-Hawk Jan 19 2007, 05:38 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 05:41 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 05:47 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 05:49 PM

Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Jan 19 2007, 06:15 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 06:20 PM

Posted by: Cheops Jan 19 2007, 06:29 PM

As far as the problem with getting IDed for using your souped up vehicle the answer is simple. Don't use it during the actual run--pull a Scaramanga.

Use whatever vehicles you need to get to and from the target site. You find a garage or somewhere secure a short chase away from the target to hide your getaway vehicle and ward the building as well as the souped up car.

Run goes sour. Astral security ID's your mages signature. Flee in the shit vehicles to the garage. The astral trail is suddenly broken (like running through a river to avoid bloodhounds). Now the spirit has to assence everyone who exits and get at least 1 success. Mage leaves in the shit vehicle and goes his own way. Rest of the team waits sufficient time and then leaves in the souped up car--hopefully free of the astral tail.

That leaves the mage to clean up the mess. Package stays with main group. If corp team moves in on mage they could tell Star to arrest him for criminal tresspass but that's it since they don't have the package. If mage manages to make it to the Glow or someother "safe" spot then he is scot free.

Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Jan 19 2007, 06:42 PM

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 19 2007, 06:45 PM

Posted by: cetiah Jan 19 2007, 06:49 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 06:50 PM

Posted by: cetiah Jan 19 2007, 06:51 PM

Posted by: cetiah Jan 19 2007, 06:57 PM

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 19 2007, 06:58 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 07:06 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 07:14 PM

Posted by: cetiah Jan 19 2007, 07:14 PM

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 19 2007, 07:19 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 07:21 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 07:23 PM

Posted by: cetiah Jan 19 2007, 07:29 PM

Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Jan 19 2007, 07:30 PM

Posted by: Jaid Jan 19 2007, 07:49 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 07:51 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 07:56 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 07:58 PM

Posted by: cetiah Jan 19 2007, 07:59 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 07:59 PM

Posted by: Jaid Jan 19 2007, 08:18 PM

Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Jan 19 2007, 08:29 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 08:43 PM

Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Jan 19 2007, 08:52 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 08:59 PM

Posted by: Cheops Jan 19 2007, 09:31 PM

Posted by: eidolon Jan 19 2007, 09:34 PM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 09:43 PM

Posted by: Jeremiah Legacy Jan 19 2007, 10:02 PM

Posted by: Mistwalker Jan 20 2007, 12:53 AM

Posted by: Mistwalker Jan 20 2007, 12:58 AM

Posted by: toturi Jan 20 2007, 01:01 AM

Posted by: Mistwalker Jan 20 2007, 01:02 AM

HappyDaze,

On page 8 of this thread, I asked 7 questions/points. You have not addressed them in anyway that I can see.

So, did you miss the post , fogot about it , or are ignoring me ?

If one of the first two, could you address the issues/questions?

If the last one, could I get a formal declaration of ignoring?

Posted by: Mistwalker Jan 20 2007, 01:10 AM

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 20 2007, 01:18 AM

Posted by: Mistwalker Jan 20 2007, 01:22 AM

Cetiah,

How would your bred teams be more loyal, if they don't know who they work for? Why would they only work for the "talking bobble head"? What would be the incentive to only do the bobble runs, and not take on any other runs?

Another issue, why bother with the bred teams, if they are so hidden? They would be a hugh cost to set up and keep running. Not to mention the possibility of them being compromised / used against you, as they don't know who you are. Freelancers would be cheaper, and most likely, just as loyal.

Your Johnston/Fixer comments about the lenght of time, or problems with broadcasting the need for a running team, leave me a little perplexed.
Once a corp has a relationship with a Johnston (if they are not corp themselves) or a Fixer, the amount of time needed to set up a meet is minimal, the time it takes to make a Comm call.
Corp calls Mr Fixer, we need a team to do ______ kind of job, do you have anyone that can fufill our needs? Yes, great, set up a meet. If no, talk to you later.
Not to mention that some Corp Johnstons have a few shadowrunning teams on retainer, to be able to call them for an urgent job (provided the team is available, or able).
All of these methodes seems much faster than all the bureaucratic steps needed to use company resources, like an in-house team (be they bred, recruited or Zeroed).
Am I missing something in your arguments?

Posted by: Mistwalker Jan 20 2007, 01:33 AM

HappyDaze and Cetiah,

A few setting questions.

1) If there is a gentleman's agreement between the corps, why don't they use their own trained, loyal people to do the runs, just issue them new SINs, that make them look like SINless with Criminal SINs? If the corps aren't going to push the issue, why have Zeros at all?

2) Why is there any kind of pursuit after the teams, once they are off property? Wouldn't the gentleman's agreement make is so that the successfull team would be accorded the win, and losses would be cut? Have the fact that there was a run kept quiet, to save face.
If you say that they would only go after freelancer teams, please explain how they would know which teams are freelancer and which are corp?

3) If pursuit is allowed, why wouldn't the corp sponsoring/doing the run, set up a few more teams, with anti-vehicle and anti-mage capability, to take out any pursuit? After all, it was ruthless criminals that attacked the victim corp. That kind of success would be very expensive to the pursuing corps.
I think that if that was allowed, then you will soon see a fair bit of non gentlemanly behavior.

4) Why couldn't your minor league runners have SOTA gear? Organized crime, small corps, would probably offer it as payment, to be happy to sell some stuff that just fell off the back of a truck. That doesn't even touch the issue of governments equiping some deniable assets, to do runs against the corps, for (insert your reason here).

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 20 2007, 01:39 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 20 2007, 01:44 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 20 2007, 01:45 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 20 2007, 01:48 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 20 2007, 01:50 AM

Posted by: toturi Jan 20 2007, 01:55 AM

Posted by: Mistwalker Jan 20 2007, 01:58 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 20 2007, 01:58 AM

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 20 2007, 02:01 AM

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 20 2007, 02:31 AM

Posted by: toturi Jan 20 2007, 03:14 AM

Posted by: Mistwalker Jan 20 2007, 03:29 AM

HappyDaze,

how can you say that the Corps will penalize the governments if they sell bio/cyberare, or have some of their people do runs, or retired people doing runs?

It isn't like there is only one corp that sells each bio/cyber item, and you can only get it from them... If GM won't sell them cars at a reasonable price, then Ford / Dodge / Toyota / Honde / Etc... will. Why would it be different for bio/cyber gear?

Another question, is how would the corps know who did the runs against them? specially if no one is caught, nor good pictures taken?

And another one, how would the corps be able to tell where the bioware came from? No black ops government would allow (or be very happy to find out) that there were serial numbers on the cyberware of their deniable assets.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 20 2007, 03:29 AM

Mistwalker, I don't know why I was addressed on some of these points, but I guess it would be rude not to respond to specific issues when requested, so here it goes...

Posted by: cetiah Jan 20 2007, 03:38 AM

Posted by: Mistwalker Jan 20 2007, 03:51 AM

Cetiah,

I apologize if I offended you.
You have made arguments for HappyDaze's view (I think the only one), and I must have confused my notes on who said what, or you supported part of what he said, and I carried it over to the rest.

Tis the problem with this thread. Every time I look at it, it has at least one more page, often two. Forcing me to take notes, written on small scraps of paper.


I may be wrong, but I believe that most games have a mixture of freelancer and corp teams. Corps contract out a lot of runs for various reasons (resource crunch, time crunch, deniability, boss won't approve but discretionary funds sufficient, etc...), but will also have corp teams for those very sensitive runs, as well as smaller runs for training, practice, etc...
Apparently HappyDaze has come to the realization that there is a need for some freelancers (regardless of their reputation level).

Posted by: Mistwalker Jan 20 2007, 03:55 AM

HappyDaze,

I am confused by the definition of some of your terms, mostly by Zeroed.

Is that a SINless (or criminal SIN) person, trained a la Femme Nikita but with bio/cyberware and a cortex bomb added?
That is the definition I got when you first started to post on this thread. Is that wrong?

More recently, I am getting the impression that it means (or also means): a Corp Citizen who has had their SIN erased, and is now one of the elite corp shadowrunners. They will be issued with a new SIN when they retire, get promoted out of field, etc...

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 20 2007, 04:01 AM

By now I really hope everyone realizes I just jerking strings for the pleasure it gives me. I'd like to thank you all for getting so worked up by what amounts to someone questioning the popular interpretation of a fantasy world. Reminds me so much of one of my favorite scenes from Clerks 2...

Thank you and good night.

Posted by: Mistwalker Jan 20 2007, 04:06 AM

Just posted on Shadowland

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 20 2007, 04:12 AM

BTW, I do want to thank Demerzel for showing me how to name my quotes. I'm going to try it just to see if it works.

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 20 2007, 05:41 AM

You're welcome.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 20 2007, 06:19 AM

Posted by: RunnerPaul Jan 20 2007, 07:43 AM

Posted by: hyzmarca Jan 20 2007, 10:04 AM