For me, the Pat Benetar song that says SR is 'Invincible', for some reason. Unsure why. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=uJLCypVk1uQ

That was our group's DnD theme back when 3e first came out (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Speaking of that song though, where the hell can I find a copy of the Legend of Billie Jean on DVD? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif)

Easy nuyen, nuff said

Yeah I don't think it's that hard to keep the PCs criminals. This issue is keeping them flying all over the global and killing (meta)humans for vast sums of money. I 400bp rigger ought to be able to steal a parked par whenever they feel like it. I magician ought to be able to influence + alter memory to get most anyone to clean out there account and move to Guam before they remember that anything happened. And the only real difference between a 400bp Face and a Fixer is there rolledex. IMO proper shadow runners need to be extremely well compensated for what they do.

Crystal runs because he actually has a vision of a better future, one not run by corps and governments. See...getting into the shadows is like having a new perspective. You're no longer looking at the wrold through rose-tinted glasses anymore. You realise why being a stray is better then being kept on a leash made of gold. You see the world for what it is. Selfish, greedy, egotistical, and rapidly dieing from it's own evil. The world's been tainted by too many people thinking that they know what's right. And among all of this, we have to deal with the threats of dragons, spirits, and The Horrors.

Just knowing that much and accepting that it's not right is enough to be a runner in the Shadows.

Van, a Troll like a . . . "Why i'm running? so the Elf does not get too close!"
sorry, i had to, seeing as how nobody else made the joke yet *g*

The reasons for my runners vary but I admit my favorite is the need for more money/power/prestige. I know a lot of people seem to gripe about why a runner would keep runnig after being able to afford a permanent high or luxury lifestyle, but I think that's a very silly question.

Plenty of the rich, powerful and criminal keep trying to accumulate money well past where they and their family would be comfortable till the end of their existence. Hell, some freakishly rich people with legitimate money will commit criminal acts at the risk of everything they have so they can get more and one up their associates (see Tyco, WorldCom, Enron, etc...).

reasons vary amongst my runners.

Mars, my troll with MPD, runs because he has nothing else. Yeah, he could stick with just being a bouncer at Venus's bar, but that would leave him restless and makes it more likely that one of his more violently inclined personalities would take over while at the bar and that, my friends, would be a Very Bad Thing.

Cami, on the other hand, runs for more. More power, more money, more freedom. More excitement. She's one of those runners who, given the chance to buy luxury lifestyle forever and retire from running, would decide that it wasn't worth settling. She'll be running until the day she gets in over her head and can't talk her way out of the mess.

usually, they just run because they are on the run from something

Not "silly" at all, if you actually live in the real world.

Rich, powerful criminal don't run around shooting people, stealing things and risking life'n'limb...
...Their position, influence, wealth means they hire people to do those things.

People who have a luxury lifestyle, and continue, weren't doing it for the money, power or influence..
..Because running around and getting shot at isn't part of any of those things.


As for your example of Tyce, WorldCom, Enron...
..,They don't involve people having mucho money, mucho influence or mucho power and going out and doing armed robbery [unless your version of those events is very different from that reported in the press ??], so are actually very bad examples.

Chava, my 19 year old elf joyboi (that's his "dayjob"), runs because he doesn't know anything else. He's still very much stuck in "survival" mode and literally hasn't realised yet that there's more to life that taking it day by day. He has a LOT of growing up to do. Taking the step from being merely a toy to a 'runner is his first step in that direction...if he doesn't get himself killed in the process.

Mind you, he may be a 400BP character, but I didn't make him for gaming purposes...or at least...not expressely for that purpose. He's more intended as an experiment in fiction.

so you can play the game.

Because the game is called Shadowrun, not Shadowretire. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

That's why *WE* made Shadowrunner Characters...

I asked about the Character's reasons...

Because normal is not the word my therapist uses to describe me.

Because shadowrunning is as much a lifestyle and an ideology as it is a career choice.

I liken it to the 60's - a lot of people dabbled and enjoyed the moment, but a select few embraced the lifestyle as a way of life and made it work.

Security contracting in Iraq is dangerous work - but the money pays well enough to lure ex-police and ex-military. Between the pay, adrenaline and select job skills - it appeals to a very select cliente

Except I'm not talking about the real world. I'm just showing examples of real life mentality where it's never enough and you can always use a little more at any risk. In a world where running around shooting people in the face is an "acceptable" criminal activity with it's own support system and small microindustry supporting its needs I'm sure there would be plenty of them who would keep doing it to get that last thing they wanted. You know, it was that badass ¥300k supercar last month but now you are gonna get your ¥1.2m yacht and you'll finally quit... yeah right...

All I'm trying to illustrate is that for many of this criminal class, it'll never be enough, so greed can serve as a perfectly valid motivation for even a very long campaign.

Tony Montana: "Me, I want what's coming to me."
Manny: "Oh, well what's coming to you?"
Tony Montana: "The world, chico, and everything in it."
- Scarface

My Social Adept/Driver runs because nothing else allows him to manipulate people and fix situations to the degree that he does. Also, he has a mercenary personality, and this is the highest pay he can get for doing his hobby.

Why do I run? Look at me. I'm 9'2" tall and look like something from a dystopian nightmare. Children, especially human children sometimes STILL look scared when I walk in to the Stuffer Shack they're in and get in to line behind them. I hold two doctoral degrees and yet I could never really be content in the society I spent my entire youth preparing myself for. I feel out of place in my own skin... so how the hell does a guy like me fit anywhere but square peg in a round hole world of the Shadowrunner?

I look around at the world and ask myself if anything else I could do would make a tenth as much of a difference to ME as what I am doing now. I'm not naive enough to think I'm changing the world, or even Seattle, or even my part of Puyallup in to a better place for everyone... but it sure as hell is better for my presence for me and a few people like me who want to pretend we still live free.

Why do I run? Because I'm afraid not to run.


BB

Well, you run because once you have hunted armed meta-humans everything else pales in comparison?

That's great!

Know, oh Prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of. When cities lay spread across the world like jeweled mantles beneath the stars- Tokyo, England, Atlanta, Denver, Chicago with it's ruined streets and towers of spider haunted mystery, Salish-Shidhe with it's eco-minded counsel, California Free State that bordered on the pastoral lands of Tir Tairngire, Aztlan with it'd blood-spirit guarded temples. U.C.A.S. who's soldiers wear cybernetics, and bioware, and plasteel armor. But the proudest metroplex was Seattle, reigning supreme in the dreaming west...

Let me tell you a story of high adventure!
*Que Music*

I imagine shadowrunning is the natural profession to the talented but chaotic individuals who chafe the bridle of lawful megacorporate oppression. "You try telling Coyote he only gets a half hour for lunch."
Criminals who cannot use their impressive skills elsewhere because of black marks on their SINs, readily apparent in this new informative world. People with illicit obligations they must fulfill on pain of death. All those talented but misunderstood people who slip through society's cracks... Those who have the means but no legal way of doing what they were born to do will always make themselves a way. These people have gathered together in the undercroft of society to form the caste of anonymous mercenaries for hire.
...
...
Yeah!

Well, real-world outsourcing proved you wrong. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Of course, any real corporate man is around 600 BP, see the grunts.

You forget the demand side of the model. Sure there are clear gains for the corps for hiring the best and brightest to work in r n' d et al, but they also benefit from the existence of competent external deniable assets, because their existence allows corps to act in ways that would not otherwise be possible. There is nothing provably linking the corp to the runners once the cash has been split and run through a dozen dummy fronts and the shadowrunners ideally don't know who they're working for and don't generally keep good paperwork. There are no records of most shadow work linking them to jobs or paymasters and even the common use aliases used by recruiters for shadow work point towards a level of unofficial collusion.

Corps want to cherry pick the most talented and the most loyal, then hope to leave some good people in the shadows because, despite the potential reversals, they still consider it worthwhile to have the external benefits provided by the shadows to be worth the opportunity cost of the gains from employing them directly because, done right by competent operational command and Johnsons, it is completely anonymous for quite some time, while even corp black ops can be tracked back.

Go commit a crime of "moral turpitude", like theft or a couple of counts of shoplifting, and then try getting a decent job...

Examples of Things You Will Never Have if you have a criminal record: law license, real estate license, teaching certification, financial planner certification, CPA license, stockbroker license. You will never get a government job, or a job in law enforcement. Options are limited... of course, there's always flipping burgers. Right?

So what do you do if you have skills and ambition, but no one will hire you because of your background? Well, you might start a company, but then clients who check your background might not do business with you. So... that's when it's time to visit the shadows.