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Posted by: Da9iel May 30 2004, 09:19 AM

I've been wondering exactly how much sense the shadowrunning profession makes. I know, don't mess with the system--it's fun and it works, but wouldn't it actually make a lot more sense especially for the big corps to raise their own covert teams in-house and off the books using plausible deniability. (I've always wanted to say plausible deniability.) Hiring outsiders just doesn't seem to make sense unless the corp is too small to have its own force, but I've seen tons of runs hired out by Renraku, Aztechnology, etc. What say you?

Posted by: Zazen May 30 2004, 09:30 AM

How plausible do you want your deniability?

When you hire runners the right way, they don't know they're working for you. That makes it pretty easy to deny. When one of those in-house guys gets caught, gets greedy, or gets tracked down, that's less easy to deny.

Posted by: Connor May 30 2004, 09:36 AM

unless those in-house guys don't know who they 'really' work for.

Posted by: Da9iel May 30 2004, 09:44 AM

I guess you're right Zazen. I was just thinking about the old Mission Impossible shows. "US Gov't denies any knowledge yadda yadda self destruct in 10 seconds." Something like that anyway.

Connor might have a good point, but it might just be easier with the current system.

Posted by: Xirces May 30 2004, 09:52 AM

I think there's some room for both, but the SR community will be very small to the point where it doesn't exist. Certainly nobody would advertise the fact and media coverage, shoe deals etc would not happen for runners (but I'm not going to start on that here).

In-house agents would be assigned more routine jobs - where utmost secrecy is not required. No matter how good they are and how unknown they are there is a link back to your corp. The jobs are also likely to be intermittent - having highly skilled operatives sitting around playing cards is not cost-efficient.

As a runner you don't know who you're working for unless they tell you or you snoop around to find out (which should be the first thing any runner does). Since there's another thread about Harlequin that shows some great examples of this.

There's also the issue of risk - if an employee is injured or killed you as the corp have to take some responsibility for it - a corp employee will have life insurance, death benefits, pensions etc. If a runner dies on the job nobody cares - it doesn't cost the corp anything and Mr J just hands over a bundle of cred at the end.

I think the best comparison is to look at modern day consultants (I actually work for an IT security consultancy). The skill levels required are high as are salaries, but a typical client will not have constant need for someone of that calibre so it makes sense to come to us when there's a specific job to do. Sure the payments might seem high (if you're paying a couple of grand a day it stacks up), but the alternative is to have someone on staff (costing maybe 100k+ a year (salary is only a part of the cost of emplying someone)). Then what happens when that person is ill or on holiday? Are they spending their whole time utilising the skills you're paying for?

Just from a purely financial aspect consultants and thus shadowrunners make sense to corps.

Posted by: Siege May 30 2004, 09:52 AM

It seems unlikely that Mitsuhama would subcontract their spec ops people out to Ares given

1) cost of training
2) political ramifications if identified

Not to start the endless cycle of "yes, runners could exist" and "no, they couldn't" debate.

Although with memory wipes, it's possible mega-corps might hire soldiers who sell their bodies to the Company and agree to have a complete memory wipe upon mustering out, provided they survive.

-Siege

Posted by: toturi May 30 2004, 10:24 AM

There are in-house forces, they are called company men. The problem with company men are that they are not as deniable as regular runners. Company men take jobs almost exclusively from the company they are allied with and never against that company. So unless they are really good at covering their jobs, they can be traced and the probability that they will be traced to you is higher. It might not be something they can take to court with, but now they know.

Posted by: Eyeless Blond May 30 2004, 11:26 AM

Okay, so is anyone going to play devil's advocate and say that shadowrunners (perhaps better called "supplemental security/informational contractors" ) could not possibly exist, particularly in the world as presented in the SR sourcebooks? Right now all I see is a bunch of people agreeing with each other.

Posted by: Siege May 30 2004, 11:48 AM

Wait until Bit shows up. He makes good points for the "shadowrunners are polite fiction" faction.

-Siege

Posted by: BitBasher May 30 2004, 05:03 PM

You must be thinking of someone else unless I was just playing devil's advocate some day. I don't remember ever saying that, but that doesn't mean I didn't!

I think that SR's in the context of the game world are a necessity because of the draconian consequences of what happens of a Mega is hit and can prove who did it to the Corporate Court. Direct action that affects another corp's bottom line is expressly forbidden by the CC.

---------------------------------
Now, to argue the other side, realistically, the amount of Nyuen spent on security alone to thwart SR's is probably FAR greater than the cash any company makes from the results of those runs. The corps lose tons of cash every year because of the SR mentality. It is a losing proposition. Furthermore the shadow community only exists because they corps allow them to. There is no such thing as the "good SR against the evil corps" because the "evil corps" foor the bill for pretty much the entire shadow community.

Posted by: Phaeton May 30 2004, 05:10 PM

All this further adds to my belief that half of the cyberpunk writers of the '80s were needlessly pessimistic dorks... :/

Posted by: Siege May 30 2004, 05:30 PM

I don't know about dorks, but they were pessimistic. That defines the genre.

And I don't know I'll buy needless, either. Besides defining the genre, suspense is a lot easier to develop with an oppressive atmosphere than a more "sunshine and flowers" feeling.

-Siege

Posted by: Phaeton May 30 2004, 05:36 PM

Yeah. Still...Sometimes there are times when the cables of my suspension of disbelief are snapped because to me it just dant make no sense...Even fiction can seem absurd at times. Ah well. I'm nitpicking.

...As usual.


~Phaeton

EDIT: Hey, "Neuromancer" wasn't necessarily pessimistic---just gritty. So the genre isn't ALWAYS pessimistic...

Posted by: Siege May 30 2004, 05:43 PM

I used to think that until I had brief access to the uncensored police files.

Absurd has been redefined since then.

I always have to look at fiction with the thought "ok, supposing this and this, then this happens...alright, run with it."

But yes, I do know what you mean about suspending disbelief, not hanging it from the neck until dead.

-Siege

Posted by: Eyeless Blond May 30 2004, 05:52 PM

Posted by: Phaeton May 30 2004, 05:56 PM

...Um...No habla Legalese? Sorry. I think that went over my head. Economics is far from being my forte...

Posted by: Sahandrian May 30 2004, 06:35 PM

Posted by: FlakJacket May 30 2004, 06:38 PM

I generally thought that Shadowrunners were used for their ultiate deniability whicl company men were used for jobs where the corp didn't want anyone outside the corporation to know about it.

Posted by: Phaeton May 30 2004, 06:41 PM

@ Sahandrian: Ahhhhhhh...Got it.

@ FlakJacket: That makes sense. Seems like a logical rationale to me, at any rate.

Posted by: Abstruse May 30 2004, 06:44 PM

Translation: When a company gets big, it doesn't have to worry about the economy. 10,000 people get laid off, the value of the dollar drops to 1/10 what it was before, whatever. Doesn't matter. They're still there and they still have the market share. As far as they're concerned, they ARE the market. Ares isn't going out of business and doesn't have to worry about going out of business. They're so spread out and control so much of the market, they have a solid base that's going to support them no matter what the economy does. Luxury clothing stores having a bad year because of recession? The cheapo place in the mall is making up for it. No one's flying because of terrorist scares? They build cars, they own the trains, they make up the losses there.

Therefore, the only real thing the megas have to worry about are the other megas. You want your competition to waste money? Start hitting them so they spend money upgrading security (Oh, you happen to own a security company like Knight Errant? Lucky you!). This applies across the board, from the MCT North American HQ in Seattle (who I believe uses KE for security as well as in-house forces) to the small subsidiary owned through 5 holding companies. You hit the HQ or the subsidiary (either one), you're taking money from the pockets of the corporation on two levels -- the loss of whatever you take as well as the budget they have to allocate to security instead of R&D or whatever.

The point of the matter is, though, why use shadow assets instead of in-house forces? In-house forces can be extracted, killed and ID'd, bribed, captured, leave a stand of hair for DNA identification, etc. You think MCT's going to pay Knight Errant to run their security when KE's parent company Ares is the reason they need to up security in the first place? Nope. So you hire deniable assets. If a shadowrunner gets killed or any of those things, doesn't matter. They ID the runner, and they don't find ties to Ares. Even if they capture the runners and get that their employer was Ares (if the runners even knew in the first place), all Ares has to do is say "Wasn't us. Maybe Renraku hired them claiming to be us." No proof, no reprocussions or reparations via the Corporate Court.

"But what if the corp gets the runners and they ID the Mr. J, and the corp connects HIM to Ares?" Easy. "Renraku must have disgused their man as one of ours. That guy was found dead -- wait, hang on...*BLAM BLAM* -- found dead three days ago."

The Abstruse One

Posted by: Voorhees May 30 2004, 07:47 PM

Eeeeeexactly.

Posted by: Glyph May 30 2004, 09:03 PM

Also remember that even the most repressive governments still have rebels, reformers, and revolutionaries. Not every shadowrunner exists solely at the capricious whim of the megacorps. I don't buy the "megacorps are all-powerful" mentality. They are monolithic entities that collectively control most of the world, either directly or indirectly, but they are not all-seeing and all-knowing. Don't get me wrong, I like the main internal conflict of Shadowrun (idealism versus realizing you are only part of the system you think you are "fighting" against).

But runners don't exist because the megacorporations smugly and compacently allow them to... they exist because of their paranoia, short-sightedness, and vicious internal battles. In a way, they are a symbol of how greed and the use of violence can cause things to escalate beyond your control. You will have runners who can eventually influence the megacorporations by their actions (think Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams). You will also have runners who are either idealists, crazies, or genuine rebels, who will choose their own targets.

Posted by: BitBasher May 30 2004, 09:36 PM

Actually glyph, my statement of "SR's exist only because corps allow them to" is taken directly fromt he corp download where it's explicitly stated that should they so decide, the Megas could destoy the entire shadow market. That's a canon viewpoint.

Posted by: Phaeton May 30 2004, 09:48 PM

Shadowrun is quickly beginning to have about as much logic behind it as why the Machines use the humans for fuel in the Matrix films when they really don't have to...

Posted by: Eyeless Blond May 30 2004, 09:54 PM

Posted by: Siege May 30 2004, 09:54 PM

Posted by: Cain May 30 2004, 10:05 PM

Posted by: booklord May 30 2004, 10:14 PM

Posted by: Shev May 31 2004, 12:17 AM

Yes, but in this case, a canon viewpoint need not be entirely correct. Sure, if all the megas just stopped using shadowrunner and turned on them all, they could feasibly wipe out most of them. However, that has about as much chance as today's companies completely stopping outsourcing jobs (and for some of the same reasons).

So I have to agree with Glyph: The Megas own paranoia and greed keep the shadows alive and healthy.

Posted by: Crimsondude 2.0 May 31 2004, 12:34 AM

Besides, the Big Ten don't control the entire economy, hire all people, or pervade ALL manner of society everywhere and every time. There is a myriad collection of other actors from governments to smaller corps to radical nutjobs to ordinary people.

People who can steal, kill, or prevent the latter two will always be necessary and in demand.

But the thing is, there are different uses for clandestine and covert operatives. The governments have long used clandestine forces for their own purposes, and covert activity when they really need deniability. In some cases they will go in-house (and the U.S., for example, has a lot of people it can use in-house) for clandestine or covert operations, or it may have to go offsite and hire someone as an agent for the government, preferably with sufficient subterfuge to create plausible deniability with the target and with itself.

Same thing still applies with SRs. The only difference is that SRs are generally freelance deniable assets (which is to say a long-term deniable asset {such as a deep cover intelligence agent who's been working with a CSO for years} can still be on a lot of people's payrolls).

And to use a current life analogy, there has been in the last ten years a tenfold increase in private military service providers. In this case a government (say, the U.S.) can hire a firm run by retired British military personnel, which also hires former military/intelligence personnel from countries such, say, South Africa, to have the South Africans deployed to, say, Iraq, and have the SAs operating on behalf of the USG through an intermediary which may create various levels of plausible deniability from the firm concealing the client's identity to the SAs to simply saying that they do not talk about their clients if the SAs squeal on Sandline.

That's pretty simple (and not very covert, relatively speaking), but the point is whether the USG wants to hire some former South African commandos to engage in some manner of clandestine activity (which is a given in this equation that, above all, no one should get CAUGHT) where if they are caught or killed there is some deniability, or they can use Army Special Forces, who, if compromised, might make a little bit harder to deny their presence and the op.

Posted by: mfb May 31 2004, 03:24 AM

indeed. hire--oops, contract some mercs--oops, contractors to secure a certain area in an unfriendly zone. when the secure the fuck out of everything that moves--men, women, children, cats, and wind-blown curtains--well, it's not our fault our contractors overstepped the bounds of their contract.

Posted by: Kagetenshi May 31 2004, 04:13 AM

Posted by: Cain May 31 2004, 06:00 AM

To a certain extent, Shadowrunning happens nowadays. It's called "corporate espionage". The violent sabotage runs haven't been common, but those used to happen around the early 1900's. And yes, they used deniable assets then, too.

Posted by: kevyn668 May 31 2004, 07:01 AM

Posted by: A Rodent of Unusual Size May 31 2004, 07:11 AM

Shadowrunners make a lot more sense if there's only a handful of them. Having hundreds of them in Seattle alone is just silly, even moreso when you have mainstream cyberware that starts getting named after them.

When I'm GMing, I usually assume there's maybe 50 to 60 of them worldwide (if that many), and most of them know one another by reputation if not name.

Posted by: Abstruse May 31 2004, 07:56 AM

No way, there'd be more. From the high-level runners to the bargin basement muppets to the bored rich kid wanna-bes, there's going to be a few of them around. Plus there's so many areas in which runners are proficient (B&E, infiltration, information gathering, wetwork, etc), so many different corps of different levels, organizations other than corps hiring runners (policlubs, governments, organized crime, etc) that if there were only 50-100 runners in the world, they'd be swamped with business and charging outrageous rates and so generalized they wouldn't be as effective. It makes more sense for every major city to have a thriving shadow community, esp in cities like Seattle where you have so much going on at once. You have three or four top level teams, five to ten mid-level teams, and about twenty low-level teams. Each team will have three to five members, so that means about 100 runners just to support the bare minimum for a city like Seattle, and those crews would be working constantly. Remember, most runners only take on one run a month or so, maybe two. Then you have teams that specialize so much they cover areas other groups can't cover as well. For a city hosting regional HQs for (I believe) seven of the ten Megacorps, offices for quite a few AA-rated corps, and who knows how many A-rated or lower, not even mentioning the subsidiaries of those companies...there's a HUGE market for shadowrunners in Seattle all over the spectrum. Where there's a demand for a service, esp. in an area like this, someone's going to be there to provide those services.

The Abstruse One

Posted by: A Rodent of Unusual Size May 31 2004, 08:00 AM

The lower end of the spectrum are just gangers in my opinion; snatch-and-grab, intimidation jobs, and stuff like that isn't what the pros get paid for. Posers are just that and either become real runners or die. Beyond that, you have either real runners which are rare or out-and-out mercs.

My problem is that the demand isn't that high, despite what the game wants us to believe. There would have to be runs in operation 24/7 in every city and every town of every state of every country to maintain the level of work they protray. I don't much care for that.

Posted by: Kagetenshi May 31 2004, 08:06 AM

Honestly, I find the concept of runner "teams" to be rather silly, an artifact created by the RPG group. It seems a lot more likely to me that people would be, for the most part, hired individually for a given job rather than as a group. The J needs a Streetsam and a Rigger? He hires them. They decide they need a Face and two Deckers? They subcontract.

~J

Posted by: Abstruse May 31 2004, 08:14 AM

With a market that large, there probably would be. Like I said, look at the numbers of corporations (both large and small), the number of policlubs, the number of governments all bordering right there...FASA and FanPro have made sure there's a large enough market in Seattle for runs to be going on all the time.

One thing you also need to remember is the level of turn-over in the shadows. Those low-level teams are much more likely to take losses, the top-tier people get enough money to retire, people step up to take their places. All those random people posting on Shadowland in the books? 3/4 of them are probably dead. That's why names that keep popping up are legends in the game world (Fastjack, Argent, Hatchetman, Smiling Bandit, etc). They're good enough they can stay alive for a decade still running the shadows.

The Abstruse One

Posted by: Crimsondude 2.0 May 31 2004, 08:17 AM

Posted by: Crimsondude 2.0 May 31 2004, 08:22 AM

Posted by: kevyn668 May 31 2004, 08:23 AM

Rinelle?

Posted by: Crimsondude 2.0 May 31 2004, 08:24 AM

Rebels of the Spire. They're a revolutionary group in TT that arose sometime around 2059.

Check the http://timeline.dumpshock.com.

Posted by: Atrox May 31 2004, 12:06 PM

Posted by: Atrox May 31 2004, 12:10 PM

Posted by: Backgammon May 31 2004, 05:37 PM

Commenting on a few points:

Posted by: Kagetenshi May 31 2004, 05:45 PM

A J will also know that the more time the runners spend watching their backs against each other, the less time they'll be spending tracking the J's identity and connections down.

~J

Posted by: Backgammon May 31 2004, 05:58 PM

Which comes down somewhat to the in-house team VS runner team. It's a tradeoff between one thing and another, being in this case Secrecy VS Performance.

Depends what the Johnson wants. But my point is, you can see why a runner team isn't improbable.

Posted by: Kagetenshi May 31 2004, 06:02 PM

I can see why a group of runners that frequently work together isn't improbable. I don't see how the "even-the-Otaku-shows-up-when-the-J-hires-us-to-intimidate-gangers" style of cohesive runner team (the kind that actually considers themselves a team) is probable in more than a very few cases. I'd say out of 150 runners there'd probably be maybe five actual teams.

~J

Posted by: Glyph May 31 2004, 07:00 PM

In that case, it's a matter of realism versus letting the players who have showed up to game play their characters. The primary purpose of Shadowrun is to have fun, and it's not fun to drive to the weekly game, then have to sit there watching everybody else play because they don't need your character's specialty for the current run.

If contriving something for everyone to do all of the time messes up the realism for you, though, there is a possible solution. Have the players each make two or three characters, say that everyone knows each other reasonably well, and then have the player use the character that fits the mission parameters for each run.

Posted by: Kagetenshi May 31 2004, 07:04 PM

I created SotSW for the express reason of having a large enough playerbase to eliminate the "team" dynamic, though I haven't really accomplished that yet (it's coming, though, I think). That being said, I do recognize that teams are a necessity of the RPG group; I just object to the notion that most runners are going to be part of a team.

~J

Posted by: Cain May 31 2004, 10:10 PM

Posted by: Lord Ver'an Jun 1 2004, 03:37 AM

As I see it, shadowrunning teams would form for two main reasons.

First, in order to generate additional nuyen: although there are a people out there who can do everything (ala James Bond), most runners are specialized in one area. Teams are necessary to cover all of the bases and to all runners access to the more lucrative (and complicated) work.

Second, the trust issue previously raised.

However, I think that most teams would be small for the same reasons. A johnson does not care how many people are on a team; he will be willing to pay the same amoun to get a job done if there are two or twenty runners.

I do not think that most runner, particularly the starting ones, would be working for the megas, even in a place like Seattle. They want to deal with skilled professionals. In the game I am starting, the players can forget about dealing with the AAAs for at least a couple of months gametime - long enough for their fixer(s) to be willing to back them to the big-time Johnsons.

Posted by: nezumi Jun 1 2004, 04:58 PM

Wow, leave the forum for three days...

One thing that always got me is why it's usually mega-corps which hire runners. I think Xirces had a great point on the first page, you hire in-house skills that you're going to need regularly, and contract out for anything else. Renraku will regularly need a strike team to go and do such and such, so they will invest in having their in-house team. The only time they would hire shadowrunners are 1) If the team is likely to have a high casualty rate, or 2) ( The revenue lost X the chance of being found ) > Extra cost for contracting out in a case that requires deniability.

Seems to me, you're more likely to get a lot of jobs from mid-level companies, Seattle bank of Mom & Pop, who can afford to pay for a pair of rent-a-cops by the door every day, but really doesn't have the money to pay for a trained weapons specialist, and the need arises.

I do like the earlier point that it's oftentimes individuals in corps who hire out teams to protect their jobs, not the corporation itself.

It certainly makes sense you'd have small teams, 'critical pieces' you'd have together. They're simply going to be more effective, and since most runs are worthless unless they're successful, the success rate will win them more clients. Granted, a 12 person team may not get a whole lotta biz because they're so pricey, but a 4 person group which has all the bases covered could easily push individuals largely out of the job, since random individuals grouped together are simply not going to be as effective/get a bad rep because sometimes they're grouped in an incompatible group.

Posted by: Nikoli Jun 1 2004, 05:29 PM

Had one GM runa game where one PC was hired 20K to get the job done, that PC sub contracted the other needs out to the rest of us, for varying fees, 1 to 2K each, that one player ended up making like 10k for the run because none of us thought to negotiate.

Posted by: TinkerGnome Jun 1 2004, 05:36 PM

As often as not, I see Johnsons working through a fixer in much the same manner as that. The Johnson needs something done and finds a fixer who can deliver. He pays the fixer x nuyen. That fixer then puts together a team and offers them each y nuyen to do the job. Whatever the difference between x and all of the ys is is the fixer's cut.

Certainly makes more sense than some ways of doing it

Posted by: Nikoli Jun 1 2004, 05:40 PM

Not to mention, how does a Shadow runner get a Johnson as a contact?

Posted by: Siege Jun 1 2004, 05:43 PM

It's a one way relationship and probably by referral or word of mouth.

Unless, of course, the Corp Johnson regularly maintains a street presence to keep an eye out for talent.

Or he gets names from a street level fixer.

-Siege

Posted by: Arethusa Jun 1 2004, 05:47 PM

Posted by: Nikoli Jun 1 2004, 05:50 PM

But, how exactly does a runner maintain that contact? I don't see a suit chumming it up of a few rounds of synth-beer at the local watering hole witht he guy he's been paying to kill other execs. Nor do I see a runner offering to fix that pesky jam in the suit's pistol as a favor for a friend. There just seems to be few methods for a runner to maintain a Mr. J contact for any length of time.

Posted by: TinkerGnome Jun 1 2004, 05:51 PM

It depends on where the safety is important at. If the Johnson gives the fixer the job, to fill as he sees fit, then it is much harder for the Johnson to be tied to the runners. He's never met them or likely been anywhere near them in any meaningful kind of way. If the Johnson has the fixer round up runners, then there is a more direct tie. The runners even know what the Johnson looks like.

Runners are scum. Let the fixer deal with them.

[edit] From a legal standpoint, as well, it's easier to wriggle out of a connection when it's one fixer saying that you payed him to do it than if there are a dozen shadowrunners all pointing fingers at you from seperate "questioning" rooms. [/edit]

Posted by: Nikoli Jun 1 2004, 05:56 PM

That's assuming the Johnson hasn't taken measures to make sure they never reach those rooms. scum get shot every day, just another pitiful statistic staining the sidewalk

Posted by: TinkerGnome Jun 1 2004, 06:22 PM

Well, they're generally in the hands of the target of the run at that point Not much the Johnson can do at that point without throwing up even bigger red arrows.

Posted by: Nikoli Jun 1 2004, 06:24 PM

He can activate that security measure he had installed when that sam wanted new wires.

Posted by: Eyeless Blond Jun 1 2004, 06:29 PM

But still more trouble than it's worth. It's easier to kill the fixer, who is not already in enemy/ law enforcement hands, than the runners, who are.

Besides, any runner who'd willingly go nder a Johnson's knife deserves to die.

Posted by: Nikoli Jun 1 2004, 06:39 PM

Hey, I just call 'em as I see 'em.

Posted by: Backgammon Jun 1 2004, 07:00 PM

A Johnson simply means the person who needs a job done from the shadowrunners. It's so vast, and can mean so many totally different types of people, that making generalisation (sp?) on how a Johnson hires a team is pointless. All mentionned methods are going to happen, just depends on the Johnson.

Posted by: Nikoli Jun 1 2004, 07:01 PM

well, in theory, the person hiring is the Johnson, just like the guy hiring the hooker is the John. When they say a Mr. Johnson contact, it usually means the profesional corp/government employee who specializes in handling criminal contractors for the organization.
These are quite often former in-house special operatives.

Posted by: Arethusa Jun 1 2004, 07:03 PM

True, it certainly depends on the needs of the Johnson, the fixer, and the runners, and will vary regularly, but it stands to reason that there would be a de facto default course of action of sorts. In my opinion, that would be the fixer arranging meets and setting up deals, after which his or her involvement ends, but that is by no means an absolute.

Posted by: TinkerGnome Jun 1 2004, 07:11 PM

I guess a big part of it is rep, too. I can see Johnsons meeting with teams directly if they have a rep he can trust. At a certain point, it's only to be expected. However, the bottom end of the megacorp food chain is probably another animal entirely. If the Johnson can't be relatively sure that one of the team members won't walk straight to the target of the run and sell him out, then I'd say more screens between the Johnson and runner are warranted.

Posted by: Siege Jun 1 2004, 08:06 PM

Given the inherent anonymousness of a "Johnson", I'd say that a Runner couldn't take a Johnson as a contact -- a Fixer, sure.

But a Fixer has to maintain a certain amount of recognition in order to do business.

-Siege

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jun 1 2004, 08:13 PM

At some level, there are probably some Johnsons who are essentially fixers who specialize exclusively in hooking up jobs and Runners.

~J

Posted by: Siege Jun 1 2004, 08:16 PM

Posted by: booklord Jun 2 2004, 03:44 AM

A fixer may choose to introduce a johnson and a shadowrunner group rather than keep them separate. He then gets paid a finder's fee by the johnson and leaves the johnson to negotiate the runner's payment. This has a number of advantages...

1) The johnson may be required to provide the runner's with some level of inside help that the fixer can't. Secret passcodes. etc.

2) The fixer may want the denialability that not knowing what the johnson and runners are up to provides.

3) His involvement in the price negotiations is minimal.

Posted by: Cain Jun 2 2004, 06:05 AM

Don't forget that Johnsons need to tell the team what they're doing. You'd have to really trust a fixer to give them that info. You could do it blind-- just a reward posted on Shadowland-- but the fixer would have to trust the source in order to make sure he'd get paid.

So, booklord's sequence makes a lot of sense. Everyone gets what they want-- deniability and money.

Posted by: A Rodent of Unusual Size Jun 2 2004, 06:51 AM

If a Johnson is willing to trust a bunch of total strangers that someone he trusted enough to get him in touch with those strangers put together, I somehow doubt if he'd have the same problem trusting the fixer to begin with.

It's just another one of the little things about the game that I'm not very keen on. It may be well established and assumptions dictate that its acceptable, but it's just not very believable to me despite that. 'Course the same goes towards a lot of the weirdness that's accepted in the game, such as Dunkelzahn's blatant hit contract against a total stranger (while simultaneously trivializing it to the point of making it into a game, not to mention stripping them of their SIN). They even tried to rationzalize it in SotSW, but it wasn't even remotely convincing...

...but I'm digressing. I have no problem with a fixer (a term that covers way too much in the game to begin with) being the man a client hires to get a job done, and then that fixer doing the work to see it done. A megacorporation getting as close to the criminal element as a Johnson does is just public relations suicide if it backfires just once, and considering how many Shadowruns alledgedly occur at every hour of every day, that liability is stupefyingly high. Especially if you consider how common backstabbing Johnsons apparently are, which only provokes runners into seeking revenge.

But it's a fun game despite all of that, so it's relatively easy to overlook for the sake of playing a game. I just have trouble accepting anyone's attempts to rationalize that its either logical or remotely believable...

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jun 2 2004, 07:23 AM

I think you have the wrong people. As far as I can remember, we at SotSW have never tried to rationalize Dunkie's will

~J

Posted by: A Rodent of Unusual Size Jun 2 2004, 07:28 AM

Stupid S being so close to the D... I meant DotSW (Dragons of the Sixth World).

Posted by: John Campbell Jun 2 2004, 07:31 AM

One point that no one's brought up that I think is worth considering: Runs are not always one megacorp hitting another megacorp. If you're playing internal power games, there could quite easily be very good reasons not to use internal assets for it.

Posted by: FlakJacket Jun 2 2004, 11:34 PM

If you wanted complete and total deniability, without offing the runners since that's just not really cost-effective for the top flight ones, why not do like in Paycheck and delete their memories?

Magic, drugs, PAB's or best of all Laes would all probably work. Use two teams and keep them seperate- one that does the reasearch and planning and the others that do the actual job. The people going in are handed the mission briefing, prepare and do the job in say twenty four hours. Then straight back home, couple hits of Laes and get rid of the memories. Of course this is taking it to the extreme of deniability.

Posted by: Arethusa Jun 2 2004, 11:46 PM

Uh, I imagine because runners would not be willing to do that. I don't trust the Johnson, and I sure as hell don't trust this syringe he gave me. No way am I going to willingly subject myself to memory deletion. And if the Johnson decides to try it with force, he'll either die or never get anyone willing to work with him again. Only place memory deletion could work is with inhouse people, and it's a major hit to morale. Bad idea all around.

Posted by: BitBasher Jun 3 2004, 01:14 AM

I have to totally agree with artheusa on this one.

Posted by: FlakJacket Jun 3 2004, 01:25 AM

Oh I know for the most part it's completely impractible. I was just laying it out as the most extreme option.

Posted by: TinkerGnome Jun 3 2004, 01:29 AM

It's probably more cost effective just to kill them at that point Who cares about a few dead runners? I mean, besides the runners themselves?

Posted by: Nikoli Jun 3 2004, 01:37 AM

Makes me reconsider the Laes immunity idea...

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jun 3 2004, 01:51 AM

The other runners who might later potentially take jobs from the employer.

~J

Posted by: Siege Jun 3 2004, 02:29 AM

Who would willingly delete their memories? People who sign up for that as part of their contract.

Offer a few starving squatters a chance to get out of the slums, make absurd amounts of money and have a chance to muster out with some serious perks and you'd be amazed at how many would write off parts of their memory.

-Siege

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jun 3 2004, 02:33 AM

Bunraku parlors do it. Why wouldn't a desperate runner?

~J

Posted by: Arethusa Jun 3 2004, 02:36 AM

I'm certain some desperate and nearsighted runners would. But once you've got him in a position to remove his memory, what's to stop you from simply not paying him and telling him that he just wasn't what you were looking for when he wakes up? Yes, those who do not see past the inherent dangers will go for it and employers who have no interest in maintaining street cred might consider it for high risk stuff, but it's absurdly unprofessional and not like to be common.

Posted by: BitBasher Jun 3 2004, 02:38 AM

Posted by: TinkerGnome Jun 3 2004, 03:19 AM

But how is erasing memories any better?

I can agree that for a holy mother load of cash, you might get some runners to do it. But for less cash, you could hire the runners in such a way that their demise couldn't be traced back to you (any more so than their memories could be recovered, at least).

That said, it might be a cool game starter to have the PCs just waking up after having their memories erased... only to discover that the target of the run is now after them.

Posted by: Siege Jun 3 2004, 05:51 AM

People able to think on their feet, with x amount of training and a purchased loyalty to the Company? Two years, substantial pay increase and perks as denoted in an Employee's contract might be considered a small price to pay for surrendering operational knowledge of a Mega-Corp's inner workings.

Granted, all of that could be achieved with p-fix BTLs and conditioning, but there is something to be said for hungry self-motivation.

I grant you, some 95% of runners would never agree to such dangerous terms for obvious reasons.

However, desperate runners (as mentioned previously) or desperate, starving refugees who would sell their souls for a chance not to die sprawled in the gutter with other sewer rats might find it a reasonably attractive proposition.

Employee Departure Clause: "Any Employee upon tendering resignation will be required to submit to a mustering out process. This process will include altering the Employee's memory regarding key elements of proprietary Company information including but not limited to access codes, policy and procedures, details of classified and confidential assignments and related materials. Failure to submit will result in immediate contract termination."

Posted by: Crimsondude 2.0 Jun 3 2004, 06:13 AM

I always thought the Employee Departure Clause in this instance was a bullet fired into the pillow covering the company man's face in the middle of the night.

Posted by: Cain Jun 3 2004, 06:19 AM

Posted by: Siege Jun 3 2004, 12:23 PM

Posted by: Crimsondude 2.0 Jun 3 2004, 09:58 PM

Natch. Touche.