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Posted by: Mercer Dec 26 2007, 08:59 AM

I made up a table years ago that was my attempt to deal with the "buyer's market" side of Shadowrun. I imagine this has been covered in a sourcebook somewhere, but its not one I own. I figured on roughly 1 runner for every 10,000 people in the population as a general guide, with "hot" cities (Seattle, Denver, Hong Kong, or Bogota by way of example) having as many as twice that. This was mainly to get the figure of 500 for Seattle, which would make my percentages easier in the next stage. If 500 is too high for your taste, you can make the number whatever you want. I basically used a Runner Population of 250 with a wannabe population of the same. Runners don’t consider the Inferior guys real runners, but people have to start somewhere. The percentages would break down similarly for most major cities, regardless of the pop. (There's probably even more wannabes than that, but all the excess does is keep the number relatively static as they get wiped out.)

With a Total Runner Population of 500, it breaks down like this:

Samurai, 40% (200)
Riggers, 20% (100)
Hackers, 20% (100)
Adepts, 15% (75)
Magic Users, 5% (25)

From there, it went by a general Rating:

Inferior, 50%
Average, 30%
Competent, 15%
Superior, 4%
Ultimate, 1%

So as a guideline, starting at 500:

Street Samurai (200 Total). Inferior: 100, Average: 60, Competent: 30, Superior: 8, Ultimate: 2.
Magic Users (25 Total). Inferior: 12, Average: 8, Competent: 3, Superior: 1, Ultimate: 1 (or less).
Adepts (75 Total): Inferior: 38, Average: 22, competent: 11, Superior: 3, Ultimate: 1 (or less).
Riggers (100 Total). Inferior: 50, Average: 30, Competent: 15, Superior: 4, Ultimate: 1.
Hackers (100 Total). Inferior: 50, Average: 30, Competent: 15, Superior: 4, Ultimate: 1.

As far as ranking goes, Dice Pools in their areas of expertise are a better indicator than BP of overall character power (as I can make thoroughly incompetent runners with any amount of BP) but I'll include both to give a general idea:

Inferior: Stats, skills and spells around 2, Dice Pools of around 4-5. Sams will have maybe a point of Cyberware, Magicians will have only a point or two of magic. They might have a 4 in something, but will most likely be defaulting rather than have the applicable skill. Gear will rarely have above and Avail of 6. (Characters, non-player or otherwise, generated at this level would usually be 200BP.)
Average: Stats, skills, spells of around 3, Dice Pools maxed around 8. Sams might have Wired One, but won't have more than 3 points of Essence filled, Magic stats will cap out around 3. Gear will rarely be higher than Avail 8, though they may have one signature piece that's better. (Characters generated at this level would usually be 300 BP.)
Competent: Stats and etc of around 4, Dice Pools around 10-12. Most gear under Avail 12. (Npcs of this level will either be generated with 400 BP, or be archetypes.)
Superior: Average stats and etc of 5, higher in their field of expertise, Dice Pools in the 15+ range. (These guys are good. 500 BP as a rough guide, with high karma pcs in here as well.)
Ultimate: Prime runners. The only real restrictions on character generation are story restrictions (I'm probably not going to make a guy who is great at everything, simply because Mary Sue's annoy me). These guys are the Michael Jordans of the shadows, the Wayne Gretzkys of runners.

Now, thats how I arrived at how many of who are in the talent pool in Seattle. How you hire them is handled like buying any other piece of (perhaps disposable) gear, as per the table below:

Rating-------Avail--------Cost
Inferior----------3------------1000¥
Average---------6------------5000¥
Competent-----8------------10,000¥
Superior--------12-----------50,000¥
Ultimate--------20+---------100,000¥

And there is a mark-up to represent Sams (who there are more of) are easier to get than Mages, as per:

Samurai: -1 Avail, x1.0 cost
Rigger: x1.0 cost
Hacker: x1.25 cost
Adepts: +3 Avail, x1.5 cost
Magic Users: +5 Avail, x1.75 cost

It looks a little less complicated to me on my scrap of notebook paper since its easier to do a table on paper than in a forum post (at least for me). These aren’t hard numbers, and the pay can scale with job difficulty, but it makes for a handy guideline.

Now, these numbers are to represent the number of freelance runners in Seattle at any given time, and used as a rough guideline mainly for people who are trying to put together teams on relatively short notice (be they pc's or npc's). These numbers don't cover the corporate black ops teams (who are like runners, but aren't freelancing), or the criminal population. Gangers, other than the select few talented enough to freelance, aren't on the list. These were just numbers I tried to keep in mind as a GM to answer such questions as, "Who can we get here in an hour?", and to provide a rough guideline for SR pay scales (based mostly off lifestyle). If an npc with no prior runner contacts went through a fixer to get someone to hit the pcs, who could he get, how long would he take, and how much would he have to spend. That sort of thing.

This is still based pretty heavily on my SR3 table, with SR4 updates. Seeing’s how Hackers are so much more a part of the system in this edition (at least in the games I play in, as opposed to the SR3 games I played and ran in) I might bump the numbers around—switch out Sams for Hackers. Also, its just a guideline as to general role in an group. Hackers rig and Riggers hack and Samurai can do either, but it’s based around what they’re best known for.

Another thing I always wanted to include was more census figures in my tables. If you look at the economy of illicit specialists, I'm sure it’s always fluctuating as people get killed, step off the bus, or come off the DL. A fixer, or just a dedicated data broker, would probably be keeping track of these numbers, to the extent it was possible. If nothing else, people would have a general sense of how healthy the population was. (Is competition for jobs fierce, are cultural subsets taking over certain rackets, that sort of thing.) But I don't how useful a mechanic would be in this instance, since it seems like something the GM could just handle by fiat.

But, then you could have little fluff details like if things start heating up in the Philippines, you could have a disproportionate number of Filipino runners as the refugees start surreptitiously making their way in. Mainly, it would be a cool way to say:

Posted by: knasser Dec 26 2007, 12:48 PM

This is good. The numbers are based on nothing but the waving of hands, but I think having numbers is a useful thing in and of itself. It adds a bit of background realism in knowing that it's hard to find someone at X level of skill or that the PC hacker is now one of the best available in Seattle.

Of course there are spin off issues, such as whether a hacker can be considered to be limited to a geographical range, or what exactly constitutes a Shadowrunner.

I'll have to go away and mull over the numbers. I like the proportions you have of runner types - e.g. Magician to Samurai to Rigger, etc. I would not alter them. However, given the recurrent actions of my last bunch of players, I have to wonder whether the city of Seattle would survive the collateral damage of one hundred Shadowrunning teams active a couple of times a month.

But as I say, having some numbers out there is good in and of itself, and if people want to pick apart the shadow economy, it's easier to do that with a starting point.

The area that I would pick apart is in your definitions of inferior, average, etc. There's big room for debate there which I don't have time for at the moment.

But good work, I'd say.

-K.

Posted by: Roadspike Dec 26 2007, 05:04 PM

I definitely like the general flow of the numbers and proportions, but I think that even more Magicians are necessary (not a ton more, but with some (relatively big) Runner teams having 2-3 Magic Users, it seems a bit odd to have 8-12% of the Shadow Magicians in Seattle on your team), and I think I'd up the Inferior and Average 'Runners a bit (because I'd only count those who survive at least a couple of 'Runs as 'Runners, so I don't want to include those who are so incompetant that they get offed in their first 'Run).

My suggestions on quantifying the above comments:

Magicians: 8%, Adepts 15%, Hackers 20%, Riggers 20%, Cyber-Goons 37%. I know that makes the percentages ugly, and I assure you that I hate that as much as you do, but I also think it makes for slightly more "realistic"

That makes for 40 magicians, the same 75 Adepts, 100 Hackers, and 100 Riggers, and 185 Cyber-Goons.

Oh, and your breakdown of Adepts would be: 75 Total, Inferior: 38, Average: 22, competant: 11, Superior: 3, Ultimate: 1 (or less).

As I mentioned above, I think your "Inferior" and "Average" are too low-powered--in my mind, what you list as "Inferior" would just be Gangers that folks would hire to cause distractions and the like. In my world, at least, I think that I would go with the following:

Inferior: Dice Pools of 6-7 in their primary areas, with Cyber-Goons having "cheap" Cyberware like Dermal Plating, Cyberweapons, Muscle Replacements, and Boosted Reflexes. So they might be down a lot of Essence, but none of it is better than Standard-ware, and there's no Bioware. Magic Users have Magic Ratings of 2-3. Riggers at this level are probably just wheel-men, or have really, really cheap drones. Probably around 250-300 Points in my view.

Average: Dice Pools of 8-9 in their primary fields. Cyber-Goons might have some alpha-ware, but probably not, and might have a point of Bioware, but probably not. Magic Users probably have Magic in the 3-4 range. Riggers might have some nicer drones, and even some with heavy artillery. Probably around 300-350 Points.

Competant: Dice Pools of 10-12, as Mercer noted. These are starting characters. They're good at what they do. 400 Points.

Superior: Dice Pools of 15+, again as Mercer noted. These are the munchkin starting characters or the intelligently-designed high-Karma 'Runners.

Ultimate: The only stat/skill these guys need is Edge, which is set at n+1, where n=The Number of Dice Rolls Necessary. Yes they can be defeated if need be, but that'll be through either insane luck or extremely in-depth and competant planning; not through straight-up dice-fights. This is Fastjack or Hatchetman (before he went off the market). You hear the name of one of these guys--you'll recognize it (if you're a 'Runner yourself).

Posted by: kzt Dec 26 2007, 05:21 PM

Every runner team I've played with or Gm for has had at least 50% awakened. Every team of 3-5 had 1-2 mages and 0-2 adepts. So 5% mages seems kind of low...

Posted by: knasser Dec 26 2007, 05:56 PM

Posted by: Mercer Dec 26 2007, 06:31 PM

Yeah, the 25% for magicians was more of a nod to the in-game percentages as they're presented. Roughly 10% of the population is Awakened, but a disproportionately high number of these go into shadow work (as opposed to cover the dayshift at CVS). If it was based on PC's, it would probably be 50% Awakened at minimum. Mages might not be rare in PC groups, but they're supposed to be rare otherwise, it would be difficult for someone to go out and hire 10 Combat Mages for a run.

Posted by: Spike Dec 26 2007, 06:35 PM

I think the adepts and mages percentages are backwards. I have some foggy rational for that and it is not meant to reflect what players actually BRING to the table in any way, just what's available.

I'm not going to try and detail my thinking right now. Just that it always struck me that adepts were always more exceptional as PCs and NPC opponents than mages. Every shadowrunning team and streetgang has access to the Wiz, but when you think 'muscle' you look to the guy with the chrome, or the troll, or the troll with chrome. Adepts aren't thought of, not because they are inferior (as optimization geekspeak here can attest) but because Runners don't see them enough to register as anything but exceptional.

Posted by: Karaden Dec 26 2007, 06:35 PM

Posted by: Fortune Dec 26 2007, 06:38 PM

I don't think I'd seperate the categories as much as this. I'd just go with Tech guys (including Riggers and Hackers), Magicians (including all spellslingers and summoners), and Muscle (including all Adepts and Samurai).

Posted by: Mercer Dec 26 2007, 06:43 PM

Posted by: kzt Dec 26 2007, 06:52 PM

Posted by: Mercer Dec 26 2007, 07:02 PM

Posted by: Fortune Dec 26 2007, 07:09 PM

Posted by: Mercer Dec 26 2007, 07:20 PM

Cap'n Jack Sparrow. The people on the Legendary list might not even be real, or they might just have a really good publicist, but either way they're separate from the people that actually have to work for a living.

I linked the status to skill level, because that seemed to be the most obvious way, but I think there's a perception issue as well. There are going to be some runners who are perceived to be of a certain status, even if their dice pools aren't in line. Maybe they're lucky, or smart, or new. Trying to get runners of say Superior status doesn't guarantee anyone of a 15 dice pool, but rather a runner that people think is "that good".

As for average stats, in previous editions I was fine with 3, in SR4 I'm fine with 2. Since its supposed to combine with a skill it can be a little lower, and I kind of like the idea that "on average, people are below average". Its sort of the opposite of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon_effect (or if you look at it that way, people tend to be 2's, but tend to think think they're 4's).

Posted by: knasser Dec 26 2007, 07:38 PM

EDIT: Mercer - it's very impolite to summarise what I'm about to post before I've actually done so. Some of us like to put our points in a long and meandering way, you know.

Posted by: Mercer Dec 26 2007, 07:45 PM

The Wobegone Effect actually makes a fair amount of sense in game terms. The famous example is the study where 80% of people rated themselves as "Above Average" drivers. In a game, if a rating 4 skill is "above average", and 80% of the population has a rating 4 skill in something then they'd all be mechanically above average.

Posted by: Fortune Dec 26 2007, 07:48 PM

Posted by: knasser Dec 26 2007, 07:52 PM

Posted by: Cardul Dec 27 2007, 09:34 AM

An impression I got from the more recent books:

There are alot of runners in Seattle. I think it was Aftershocks that had one mage get together a group of like 10 Prime Runners to help defend one place that the Corps decided they wanted. Then there are Runners like G. Dog and Lothan, who have "day jobs" but also do higher end runs. This always gets me thinking of those old Martial Arts movies where even the street sweeper is a master of two or three styles of lethal martial arts, and kind of leaves the impression that much of the Seattle Population do runs to some extent or another. Also, let us not forget Hood, who is a CEO, but goes on Runs to keep in contact at the street level and find out what his underlings are doing. Basicly, I do not think you can put Seattle or any other Hot Spot into neat numbers.

Posted by: Mercer Dec 27 2007, 06:23 PM

That reminds me of Sin City (the movie, not the fake ID superstore). I think its on the higher end of the high/low Fantasy, high/low Chrome division. Ten Prime Runners in one city would be like the Avengers to me. If that works for the game then that's fine, but I tend to run games that are more Black than Chrome, more low fantasy than high. (I mean, as much as these divisions mean anything.) So that's what my numbers are based on. These numbers are probably the High End of Low Chrome.

But the specific number of runners you use is really a preference thing. In some of the early supplements, it was implied the number of shadow people was much higher, with bars and restaurants that catered almost exclusively to runners. Even if the majority of them were wannabes, you'd still be talking about thousands of runners in Seattle alone. I don't think any particular number is the "right" one for SR, as long as the GM is consistent. (Consistency is a bigger boon to verisimilitude than almost anything; a game can be over-the-top as long as its consistently over-the-top.)

Posted by: Konsaki Dec 27 2007, 06:50 PM

You have to figure that alot of these 'shadowrunner' bars and clubs will have normal people as patrons due to either not knowing any better, wanting the thrill of maybe being near a real shadowrunner or wanting to pose as one to impress a girl/guy.
I highly doubt they run on shadowrunners alone.

Posted by: Adarael Dec 27 2007, 07:14 PM

Posted by: Whipstitch Dec 27 2007, 07:21 PM

/derail

I've always felt Jet setting should be a more commonly used GM tool when runner teams start to get too big for their britches. "Optimized" Seattleites are suddenly a lot less scary when things go wrong on job in Amazonia and only one of them has the Survival skill and the Mage didn't realize he'd be practically blinded by all the flora and fauna lighting the Astral up like a christmas tree.

Posted by: Adarael Dec 27 2007, 07:31 PM

You know, that is so incredibly true.
Been there, done that, been laughed at for it.

Posted by: Riley37 Dec 27 2007, 11:00 PM

Side question: what percentage of the Seattle population, are characters played by Kyoto Kid?
If he has a strong opinion about who the next mayor should be, and his PCs vote accordingly, can he swing the election?

More seriously, a GM might well come up with thumbnail sketches of, say, the top 20 NPCs in the campaign area, and drop hints over time until the PCs recognize the names even of the ones they haven't crossed paths with. Then, when one of those NPCs gets executed by Aztech or MCT when a run fails, it'll mean more; while if those NPCs get hired by Saeder-Krupp to steal the McGuffin, and the PCs get hired by Ares to steal the McGuffin, the PCs will know that their success is likely to result in Saeder-Krupp becoming upset with the unsuccessful NPCs. Which could have side effects if the PC buys foci and binding materials from their Loyalty 2 talismonger contact, but the NPC also has that talismonger as a Loyalty 5 contact. (One outcome: duplicate the McGuffin, trade it to Saeder-Krupp for the release of the talismonger's boyfriend, talismonger expresses gratitude with free foci.)

Posted by: Mercer Dec 28 2007, 08:47 AM

I've used Contact Webs for other games, and its helpful particularly when you have a lot of factions and individuals moving in different directions. Vampire probably got me started on that. Its odd I've never thought to do it in SR, considering how much Contacts are a part of the game, but here we are. Part of the reason is until I really started putting numbers down on paper, the Shadows were basically a big amorphous blob that anything could come wandering out of.

Posted by: Stahlseele Dec 28 2007, 10:24 AM

Posted by: Fortune Dec 28 2007, 10:27 AM

Yeah, but Mercer's not really talking about the PC's perceptions of the NPC's power levels, but their actual power levels.

Posted by: Stahlseele Dec 28 2007, 10:45 AM

*shrugs*
Reality is HIGHLY subjective based on Perception . . you might see a tall, blonde girl and think amazone, i might see the same girl and think valkyrie . . if you don't percieve them as being masked magicians, they are not magicians to you but simple mundane people i'd say O.o

Posted by: Fortune Dec 28 2007, 11:59 AM

Ok, let me out it another way then. Mercer is referring more to the NPC's out-of-game statistics than their in-game personas.

Posted by: Mercer Dec 28 2007, 12:17 PM

Merver? Man, that's an unfortunate typo. ("Merver" to me sounds like the name of a guy who's a chromosome short and working the night shift at the Stuckey's down by the highway. But that's here nor there.)

A GM can justify anything after the fact. But if the GM starts using a lot of initiates after a pc picks up Masking, it really just nerfs Masking and at least part of the player's decision to take Masking was that initiates are rare, and so the power will occasionally work. (Does that sentence make any sense at all? I've read it five times and I'm still not sure. I think this "Merver" thing has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.)

I find having some rough numbers sketched out beforehand makes the game more consistent. When I am pulling things out of my ass as a GM, I have a framework to work with so I don't end up out in the tall corn. Consistency is for me a big part of the verisimilitude. If I have an idea of who the big names in Seattle are, I can mention them here and there. They don't just show up in the first run where they're important. It gives a campaign that lived in feel. Little touches like that can go a long way in selling an idea to the players.

Posted by: Blade Dec 28 2007, 01:34 PM

Posted by: Ryu Dec 28 2007, 02:03 PM

The number of runners that feels right is a matter of perception.

A working running community requires a large and qualified infrastructure. Gear, hideouts, even some protection by not being the only chromed monster in town come to mind. So Seattle should hold the runners for most surrounding towns and larger parts of the NAN. Once a certain infrastructure is present, the size of the running community would steadily increase until demand is met.

Demand would be pretty large. Consider our world and professional criminals for hire. There would be several hundred execs in any mayor town with ideas how a run could improve their career. Add to that the victims of crimes who want revenge, which certainly do not decrease in number from the first part.

There also needs to be a definition of runner. Mercers numbers seem (to me) to focus on "pure" runners. The number of part timers would induce a significant change. There would be many more muscle and matrix runners. This is due to a high number of script kiddies on one side and gangs/syndicate members/mercs/criminal security consultants on the other.

Posted by: Fortune Dec 28 2007, 02:08 PM

Posted by: Roadspike Dec 28 2007, 04:08 PM

Posted by: Mercer Dec 28 2007, 08:13 PM

Posted by: Ryu Dec 29 2007, 11:48 AM

Posted by: FrankTrollman Dec 29 2007, 12:11 PM

Posted by: jklst14 Dec 29 2007, 04:25 PM

There's a big difference between those 15 000 SINless magicians and all the SINless guys who are big and black.

Magical talent is in very high demand since there is a lot of very profitable legitimate work for magicians. Not everyone is going to be a magical researcher or security mage. If one has a Magic of 2 and can cast Fashion, Makeover, Orgasm or Heal, that's a lot of potential earnings, without anyone trying to shoot you back. It's a ticket out of the Barrens for these guys. If you're SINless and magically active, you could probably just walk into an Evo office and say "Hi, I'm SINless but I can cast spells. I'd like a job and a SIN." And after a background check and screening, they'll give you a job in a Evolution body shop doing Healthy Glow spells on rich people.

Now the corps are going to miss a lot of these guys. But when word gets around the neighborhood that little Jimmy can cast Trid Phantasm, I'd bet that the criminal syndicate (especially Triads) would take a keen interest. They'd either try to recruit young Jimmy or maybe they would just pass the info a long to a corp headhunter.

So I do agree, there's going to be a ton of SINless magically active people. But this pool is going to be greatly cannibalized by corporate and syndicate recruiting, leaving a much smaller shadowrunning pool. A SINless magician has tons of options. A SINless guy who is just big and black, not so much.

Respectfully,

-JKL

Posted by: FrankTrollman Dec 29 2007, 06:32 PM

But that's just it. How the hell does little Jimmy pass a backgrond check? Granted, if he can cast one of a long list of industrial and utility spells they won't even care and hire him anyway, but for your average SINless magician, passinga background check is an impossibilty. Because, you know, they're SINless. And anyone freelancing for criminal syndicates is a Shadowrunner, so they should be counted in the numbers.

To paraphrase Biafra, Wall Street and Crack Dealer Avenue are the last roads left to the American Dream. Only one road leads to the Barrens, and little kids want to be major criminals when they grow up. Only in the Shadowrun world, 1% of people are born with the keys to the fucking rocket car and can go down either road until they crash into something.

The Barrens puts forth literally thousands of magic using people who commit crime and want to hit it big in the word or crime. Some of these people rise through the ranks of crimnal syndicates and some stay freelancers the whole time, but in either case they are taking Shadow jobs for shadow money and shadow running to make it work.

When it comes to moderately to very skilled freelance criminals, the vast majority are magicians. Becuase that's the section of the population which can literally be born with those talents. The oddities are the people who have mundane training, equipment, and cybernetics which stands the equal of even moderate magical prowess. A freelance Street Samurai is a seriously rare dude. There are maybe hundreds of them in the entire sprawl and all of them were created by Corps or Governments and most of them still work for those entities and aren't freelancing. If you have Wired Reflexes and a monofilament sword, you're part of a seriously rare breed. There are maybe a couple dozen people in the entire Sprawl who can do what you do.

Bt if you're a mage? Get in line. There are literally thousands of people who want your job. Even if have a Magic of 5 puts you in the 90th percentile, that still means that there are four thousand people in the Seattle Sprawl who can match you at spell slinging. Sure, most of them have real jobs, but you're nothing like an oddity in the world of crime.

-Frank

Posted by: knasser Dec 29 2007, 07:40 PM

Posted by: FrankTrollman Dec 29 2007, 07:57 PM

Posted by: kzt Dec 29 2007, 08:01 PM

People overestimate how many member there are in organized crime. IIRC, there were 50-70 made men who made up the Chicago "Outfit" in the 90s. They had connections everywhere, but those 50-70 guys WERE the mafia in Chicago and the 5 counties around it. Everyone else involved with the Outfit was a wannabe or an associate at best. And they were from a few hundreds to a thousand.

Of course, SR also has no idea how large a street gang is either. . . .

The other thing to realize is that corporations are really conservative in who they hire. If you want an example of this, try putting down a felony arrest on your next job application. People who live in the barrens, like people who live in the ghetto, tend to end up involved in criminal activity and end up with arrest records or drug addictions even if they don't end up dead. Would you hire a graduate from MITT or some gang banger with talent who has a chip on his shoulder the size of a boulder and considers a street gang his family?

A good example of the LA gang life, which can be easily extended to the Barrens, is http://www.laweekly.com/index3.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17861&Itemid=2&pop=1&page=0.

Posted by: Blade Dec 29 2007, 08:11 PM

From what I heard, there aren't many people in the mafia itself, but there are a lot of people working, most of them unknowingly, for them.

Posted by: Jhaiisiin Dec 29 2007, 08:18 PM

Of course, therein lies the problem. While there may only be 20 core "mafia" people or whatever, the fact that there are hundreds if not thousands of people working with/for/under them is what makes them an issue.

Posted by: knasser Dec 29 2007, 11:08 PM

Posted by: knasser Dec 29 2007, 11:10 PM

Posted by: kzt Dec 29 2007, 11:31 PM

No professional criminal (and the few hundreds to a thousand are all one man crime waves - crime is what they do every day) has anything other then professional respect for the law.

Posted by: knasser Dec 30 2007, 12:54 AM

Posted by: kzt Dec 30 2007, 01:38 AM

Posted by: knasser Dec 30 2007, 02:03 AM

Posted by: kzt Dec 30 2007, 03:02 AM

Looking it up I think we are both wrong as [to] the word usage. But I understand where you are coming from.

Posted by: Mercer Dec 30 2007, 07:13 AM

I think you can have contempt for someone's motivation and still respect their capabilities. I mean, they're antonyms, but you're dealing with different aspects of the relationship. You may think that enforcing the law is a foolish thing to do (why mess up good business?) but that's not the same thing as thinking law-enforcement are fools.

My numbers are based around magicians being more rare than non-magicians. The community of freelancers may have 15,000 out of 500,000 SINless to pull magicians from, but it has 485,000 SINless non-magicians to pull from. (I'm not really using those numbers myself though. I usually estimate it as 5000 magicians out of 500,000 people.) With a little training, luck and gear, almost anybody can be a hacker, sammie or rigger; esp an inferior one, that takes relatively little effort. But if you're not magical to begin with, you're never going to be a magician. Even so, the number of magicians in the freelance community is pretty high, they're roughly equal to the number of hackers or riggers. (Adepts were left off my original list, but added in with full magicians they comprise 20% of the shadow community.)

It might cost 30k to be a sub-standard sammie (or hell, let's just say "Average"), but its not like a person has to scrape together that much cash, take it down to Sammies'R'Us and get the basic package. That's just the cost in character creation; in the character's background he might have gotten where he is without ever actually touching a single nuyen.

You could switch it around so that each area of specialization comprised 25% of the total pop, so that sams, riggers, hackers and magicians were all pretty much in equal number. I prefer to keep magicians slightly more rare and sammies more common, but its really a question of personal preference.

Posted by: kzt Dec 30 2007, 07:40 AM

The critical thing the mage has is that they don't need any money to become good. An instructor, a classroom and an empty field is all they need. They don't need the Matrix 24x7, they don't need illegal weapons, they don't even need power.

They don't need a trained surgeon using high-tech sterile gear to install complex and expensive hardware into their brain or replacing nerves. Even wired 1 is 11,000 and you can't be more than marginally effective as a sammie without at least that second IP. That's two years of squatter lifestyle, or 6 months of low.

They don't need huge amounts of expensive training ammo. I've fired about 5000-7000 rounds in training courses to reach an moderate level of competency with a pistol. That's 10-14,000 worth of ammo. Again, that's over two years of squatter or 6 months of low lifestyle.

They don't need high performance cars, bikes, or (god help us) helicopters or expensive software/comlinks that require continual updating and need reliable high bandwidth connections to the Matrix.

It's a huge advantage. (Which I didn't think of until Frank pointed it out, but he's right.)

Posted by: Mercer Dec 30 2007, 08:15 AM

They don't need any of that stuff, but if they're not magically active to begin with, it doesn't matter how much stuff they don't need (so to speak). My feeling is that the number of people who have access to the cyberware and tech is larger than the number of people who are inherently magical. If the effort is similar but more people have access to a particular route, there will be more that go that route.

A samurai doesn't need money to be good. He needs cyberware, guns and training. These things cost money, but that doesn't mean the sammie has to pay that money to someone (except in character creation). As an example, I've heard that it costs roughly 100k to put one recruit through Marine boot camp; but the people who go to Marine boot camp don't have to pay 100k. (In fact, they're actually drawing salary while they're there. They're actually making money while expending hundreds of dollars worth of ammo.)

I would imagine that most shadowrunners go a similar route (not Parris Island MCRD necessarily) and pick up their skills and tech OTJ. Relatively few think, "I want to be a samurai" and then apply for a small-business loan to cover their start-up costs. (I mean, I think that would be a neat background, but not a common one.)

Anyway, this is all going the long way round to explain why I like and use my numbers. (An equally good explanation might be, "because I made them up".) If you like different numbers, you can switch them around. I don't think we're going to hit a specific percentage that's going to work for everyone, since its a matter of preference.

Posted by: FrankTrollman Dec 30 2007, 10:59 AM

But there are more magicians than armed forces personnel. By a huge margin. And while every single member of every single armed force is in some tied to an agency, magicians are just born and can do anything they want.


In 2007, the United States has the third largest and most technically advanced army in the world. It is also third largest in population at about 300 million. Its armed forces of 1.3 million constitutes about 0.43% of the populace. Almost half as many as are magicians who can astrally project. Compare to China, which has the world's largest armed force at 2.8 million, but has a population of 1.3 billion, which means that as a percentage they only have 0.21% under arms.

World total is almost 20 million, out of a population that is over 6 billion. That's less than a third of a percent. And that's armed forces personnel, it includes people whose job description doesn't even include flipping out and killing people. Statistics pulled from http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/mil_arm_for_per-military-armed-forces-personnel rather than my ass this time.

So seriously, magicians are substantially more common than military personnel. Also, they have longer careers because if a magician happens to be an old man, hell if a magician happens to be twelve that doesn't disqualify him or her from the team. If some punk kid happens to be twelve years old, but she can summon a Force 5 Earth Spirit, she is on the team. Contrarywise, even if a twelve year old kid can shoot straight, hell especially if a twelve year old kid can shoot straight, I don't want him on the team.

-Frank

Posted by: Mercer Dec 30 2007, 12:01 PM

I'm not saying there aren't that many magicians in the world, I just think there aren't that many working as freelance criminals. The number of magicians hovers around 1% (whereas the number of hovering magicians is somewhat lower), but the numbers of shadowrunners in the population is around .01%. So if the population of North America is 300 million, there would be 3 million mages, but only 30,000 shadowrunners. Statistically, the number of magicans who are shadowrunners would be 300 (1% of the 30,000), but because its an activity they are sought out and suited for, I went with a figure 20 times higher than that. Of the 30,000 shadowrunners in North America, roughly 6,000 of those will be mages. To look at my numbers another way, every shadowrun team has 1 Mage, 1 Hacker, 1 Rigger, and 2 Sams (in much the same way every family has 2.5 kids).

Also, keep in mind that for my numbers (based on role rather than strict adherence to mechanics), Physical Adepts are lumped in with sammies. You could change the name of the group to Physical Combat Specialists, since its about the job they do rather than how they do it. So a certain percentage of Sams are magically active, even if I don't lump them in with Magic Users. That'd bring the percentage of magically active shadowrunners up to around 30% (if one quarter of the physical combat specialists are in fact physical adepts). Around 1/3rd of shadowrunners are magically active, as opposed to the 1/100th of the general population. I don't really see how much higher you can raise that percentage without flooding the market, effectively making magically active runners more common than the non-magically active.

Posted by: FrankTrollman Dec 30 2007, 01:06 PM

You are doing statistics wrong.

Remember that people don't become shadowrunners and then either develope magical talent or not. The order is that first people are born, then people train, and only then do people get jobs.

So the question is not "how many shadowrunners developed magic?" The question is "How many people with the skillset to become a Shadowrunner actually became one?" By demonstrating that the pool of mages is (by your calculus) hundreds of times the size of the Shadowrunner pool means that there are enough available that you could have every shadowrunner be a magician and not seriously deplete the demographic.

The skill set to become a successful Shadowrunner is very rare. But more of the people who have it are magicians than aren't. To say that magicians are less than half the shadowrunner population you are already positing that Magicians are predisposed to avoid criminal lines of work. And honestly from what we've seen of magician psychology I am unconvinced that is true.

You can't just wave your hands and say that because a majority of the total population is mundane that a majority of the shadowrunners will be mundane as well. Because a majority of the population also aren't accomplished hackers or trained killers. You have to look at the specific subset of people who have one of the needed skilll sets to be a shadowrunner as your whole demographic. So maybe that's all the military personnel (unlikely, but it's one third of one percent) and maybe it's all the professional teamsters (fat chance, but it's 0.46%), and it is most definitely every single Magician (1.0%).

So seriously you're saying that a magician with the skills to pay the bills is less than one tenth as likely to be a criminal or freelancer who doesn't wear a white shirt and go to work like The Man wants him to because that's not how he rolls than is a rigger? Because that's what the statistics you are throwing around actually say.

-Frank

Posted by: Ryu Dec 30 2007, 01:41 PM

I wonder if we can use the statistics on current military personell quotas for comparison with mages.

Anyone who ever was in the military has had a useful runner skillset developed for free. What percentage of current americans does serve for a term? Countries with a drafted army come to mind, one switzerman one rifle as an extreme. Besides that I think the number of corporate military and security forces in an environment that almost casually accepts the existance of runners multiplies the population-currently-in-armed-forces (all) severely.

Mind you, I´m not speaking against Franks argument for more magicians in the shadows, I´m just saying that the quota of magicians in the runner population would be lower. And the overall runner count correspondingly higher, because many people would like to do runs that pay several months of lifestyle in a few days.

Posted by: Zak Dec 30 2007, 02:38 PM

I highly disagree that everyone who did military service qualifies for shadowrunning. The training given to most grunts around the world is mostly just looking like training, but is more like wasting time while waving with a gun.
What it might give is confidence, but since that isn't really backed up with skill, it is probably going to kill you on the street.

Posted by: Konsaki Dec 30 2007, 05:07 PM

One thing to remember when factoring in shooting range costs, you can always just load up a firing range sim on your commlink to practice for free. If you have Cold-SIM you would be able to feel the kick, weight and other effects just like you would feel at the range, sans the cost of bullets and fire range fees.
So that 14000 nuyen cost is moot.

Posted by: knasser Dec 30 2007, 05:22 PM

Posted by: hyzmarca Dec 30 2007, 07:07 PM

If I wanted to do wetwork today, all I'd really need is the contacts. It doesn't take a particularly large amount of skill to walk up to someone and shoot him in the face at point plank range unless that person has a rather large amount of security. Even when obtaining smuggling or obtaining a firearm is improbable, there are other possibilities. Anything from an ice-pick to a rear naked choke will do. Then there might be the costs associated with an amburdly large amount of plastic wrap, a hack saw, and a box is disposable garbage bags. The real difficulty is finding someone who will pay to have someone killed who isn't an undercover cop or a lunatic.
I wouldn't be able to assassinate the president of anything with any reliability, of course, but I'd be able to take out small fries without difficulty.

The same is true in Shadowrun. There are little leagues and there are the big leagues. Anti-social people with few skills and desperate people with few skills can both start out in the little leagues. They can be apprentice legbreakers in the mafia and do on the job training under the tutelage of a master legbreaker or the can be gangers

Posted by: kzt Dec 30 2007, 08:21 PM

There is also the minor issue, that, contrary to fiction, killing people doesn't pay well. How much does a mafia guy get for a hit? Nothing, it's part of his job. He might get something extra, but he gets "asked" to do this "favor". It's part of the price for running the numbers operation or whatever criminal activity he runs that allows him to live the good life. If they are lucky they will get their expenses reimbursed.

For the street gangs it's typically a couple hundred bucks.

If someone is offering you big bucks it's almost certainly a guy with a wire and 10 of his best friends 15 seconds away.

There were exceptions, like the Texas banks that had a no questions asked policy on the reward for robbers at the early part of the 20th century, but they stopped that when it was pointed out that paying big bucks for the murder of a random drifter who hadn't ever robbed a bank wasn't a very effective way to reduce the number of robbers. And yes, that was what was happening.

Posted by: kzt Dec 30 2007, 08:44 PM

Need isn't why people go into crime. Extraordinarily few people get arrested for stealing food to feed themselves, etc. Some go into crime because it looks like a way to get money without working for it. For many it's what the successful people in their 'Hood do. For others it is the whole work is boring, crime is exciting part. You get to hang around with people who have big bucks and throw fun parties, etc.

The fact that there are certain penalties associated with this doesn't matter, because at the age they do this, they think they are immortal and know everything and are smarter than the cops.

The example of this http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-12-16-armored-car-heist_N.htm is what you get with people who are not "trapped into a life of crime" but wanted to get rich without effort and think they are geniuses.

So I can certainly think that a lot of people who have magical talent but nobody has offered them a golden stairway would be willing to go into a seemingly glamorous criminal life and would be sought out at a much higher rate than people who "played a lot Halo 23 and are really good shots - see my scores!".

Posted by: Mercer Dec 30 2007, 09:26 PM

Posted by: FrankTrollman Dec 30 2007, 10:08 PM

The player character rations are about 1/3 to 1/2 mages and about 1/2 metahumans. And for Shadowrunners, that's about right.

-Frank

Posted by: ornot Jun 3 2008, 11:11 AM

This is an interesting thread, hence why I'm inflicting necromancy on DS.

One factor that hasn't been addressed is how magicians get the training they need to sling spells and summon spirits. This is at least as hard to get hold of as weapons training, probably moreso since the training has to match the tradition and probably won't be widely available as softs.

The equivalent to a magic 2 magician with spellcasting 2 could easily be considered a mook with artificial muscles, a handblade or spur, and a cram habit. Not expensive or highly trained, he's still pretty dangerous to Joe Public, and in my book would qualify as a street sam.

As far as the game ratio of magic users conflicting with the fluff, that's why I restrict the number of magically active PCs I'm prepared to accept in my group. Of course, that comes down to my personal preference, but I don't think the fact that lots of people want to play spell slingers is really justification for saying that magic users should make up a larger proportion of runners.