So, my gaming group was going over buying some stuff and thought, "Hey, a cheap, low availability gun - my armorer should have that." We go through the rules and apparently it's still a rolling matter. So we're wondering if we missed something in one of the rulebooks or if this is the kind'f area that a GM would normally say, "Of course she has a Ruger Super Warhawk and normal ammo for it on hand."?

Both. It depends on what you are most interested in:

If you want a fast gameflow and the players just want to obtain standard stuff, then by all means, forego the rolling.
If you want to play it by the books, a roll is nescessary.

Keep in mind that it does not nescessariyl have to be the char that rolls, but the connection. A good fixer easily rolls 11+dice on that roll, so having a ruger at hand should not be an issue.
Also, a fixer is not going to carry your goods around at all times. He'll have to fetch the goods and get them t you. That alone can account for most of the "delivery time". Also, keep in mind that you are not legally purchasing products, but you are aquiring goods that are "off the radar". That in itself can justify delays on even regular merchandise.

Hope that helped.

That's more or less what I assumed. And more or less what I debated as a counter ... but given the response of "oh, it's common sense that it shouldn't be that way" means I wanted to dig for more.

Basically, there's a player in my group who really doesn't dig that for his Armorer. And, given that an Armorer should logically have a fair number of guns, but also tends to have sub-fixer Negotiation, Connections and Charisma ... it can seem that you might as well go to a Fixer for everything. And he thinks that makes no sense at all.

Actually, it makes perfect sense, as you don't want your weapon registered officialy. The armorer will be less likely to store "illegal" weaponry, so he would have to account for any and all of his weapons that went "missing" just to turn uup as evidence in a murder investigation, 2 weeks down the road.

A fixer on the other hand, specializes in such "registrational transitions".
The armorer woulod be the better source, once you need weapons or armor repaired or modified, though...

My group is having this same problem about wares, because we must use Street Docs for geting this stuff and they don't have the best of charisma+negotiation.
I'm still trying to convince my GM to give bonus dice to some of the more common stuff (although in the case of some wares I get that it can't be out of shelf ware and some customization is necessary before surgery, mainly cultured bioware and cyberlimbs)

What the other player and I have worked out is a combination sort'f system. Instead of rolling the interval normally, you roll first and that's how much availability the contact has on hand. Finding other stuff is a normal interval roll adding to what you go in the first roll...

So, for a Ruger Super Warhawk, you'd roll your Charisma+Negotiation+Connections and get 6 hits. Congratulations, they have it on hand. Now, if you were looking for APDS rounds, they'd have to search in 12 hour intervals until they got a total of 10 more hits.

We were thinking of a combination with that where you could specify that the contact got free hits in their specialty. Like an armorer could get +4 hits on Firearms and Armor. Or something along those lines. And then take a dice pool modifier on finding anything else. Or use the normal interval system. Something to make them not just straight-up better.

EDIT: We haven't actually convinced our GM to use this ...

You need to keep a few things in mind:

1) Your contact adds his/her connection rating as a dice pool modifier to the availability test. So, even if their C+Neg pool is low, your conection level can offset that by up to +6. Not bad, if you ask me.

2) You can have your fixer look for the ware and then have your street doc implant it, once your fixer aquired it for you.

3) At least one member of your group should have a connection 4+ fixer as contact (or you need a really good Face in your group)


The only thing that I can see are the interval brackets for the availability test that could prove to be a problem, as it would mean that even in Lagos, at the Dúdú Dúdú Ôjá it would take you at least 12 hours to find a used AK-97, which (considering the fact that you are at an arms market that prides itself with selling everying, including nuclear weapons and that you are looking for the single most common weapon in this area) is absurd, to say the least. But that's where common sense and the GM overrule SR rules, in my opinion.
As a general guideline, I find the availability rules of SR4 quite okay and their outcome plausible.

1 & 2) I'm well aware of that, but our GM (Garou) is pretty strict on which contacts can get what. The only contacts that can find ware for you are Street docs, Tamanous people and related.

3) Our Face has a UCAS Senate as contact with connection 6 even so, the contact can only do one swag for a time and use a queue system. If I order some equipment with an Arms Dealer and later our Street Samurai orders equipment with the same arms dealer, then his request will be on hold until our contact delivers my stuff.

Now, I'll agree with on using common sense. I'll even suggest Falar's ruling to Garou.

The he's an idiot. Fixers broker in contacts and goods alike. They are the definition of the "I know a guy that knows a guy" networking principle. If a fixer can't find it for you, it's doubtful anyone else can.

Keep in mind that Armorers and Street Docs are not nescessarily in the business of aquisition.



What's the logic behind the queue? I seriously don't get it. The only possible explanation is that he wants to annoy you on purpose, which further reinforces my opinion on him, above.

This is a fixer, why:
"Yeah, I know a guy who knows a guy who knows about that kind of stuff. Want me to fix you up with him?"

He says the contact is already busy with other stuffs and can only handle one requisition from the entire group. This has not becoming an issue yet (although it will become now that we are asking for stuff that gets 4+ weeks to arrive).
Also, his argument is that fixers are used to get information, licenses, SIN's and stuff like that.

Brazillian Shinobi--I'd point your GM to SR4A p. 287 and p. 312

Fixers would be used when you want to acquire something via the black market.

You can get anything that doesn't have an F immediately, assuming you have proper identification to acquire said good.

Basically, you can get your good right away (if it isn't forbidden) if you're willing to run your fake SINs against the system for the good. So for things like 'ware or weapons that may not always be the best idea.

That reasoning doesn't even make sense. The average day of a fixer would consist of many different requisitions from different clients that he would have to manage. If he could only manage one request per day, he'd be out of business. Period.

How old is your GM, exactly? Has he ever spent a single day working in the real economy?

First off, that doesn't count for "restricted" items, so may want to take those off the list along with the "forbidden" items.
Secondly, just because you'd be legally allowed to buy a particular item does not nescessarily mean it's available right out of the bat. It might still be rare, or sold out, or just delayed.

Usually you'd have a pretty realistic outcome with the existing availability rules.

Perhaps the GM in question is using the one request per team as an artificial adjustment to keep the power level in his game down...


He said nothing about the fixer not helping other clients (teams) just that he treats the team as a single client and will do one thing at a time.

Now, I will agree that it is a bit silly... but it is his game.

Fixers do a hell of a lot more than that. Anything they don't deal in directly, they "subcontract" to their own contacts. Fixers are spiders in webs of favors and information.

Yes it does. Rolling and availability only are used when purchasing controlled goods off the black market.

If you're buying a restricted item through a legal channel they will run a SIN check and verify that you have a license to purchase the good in question.

Any limitations on buying restricted and other goods through legal channels beyond SIN/License limitations is purely GM fiat.

It would still be a silly way to go about it. It would be much easier for him to rule that the contacts were simply unable to procure items he deems unbalancing or interfering with his campaign. That way, the situation would at least remain plausible. A fixer than can't handle more than one customer a day is beyond silly.




Sure it is his game, but obviously his players are not too thrilled about it and it is absurd at best. He should consider a different approach IMO.



After reading through SR4A again, you are right. However, the free availability 24/7 only goes for items without an availability rating.
The problem now is: We lack rules for "legal" goods with an availability rating, purchased on the free market, rather than the black market.

Personaly, I would recommend using the same rules for the availability test for those items.

Soooo, why do legal things have availability? Like, say, ANFO. If I can just go get it anywhere and it doesn't need a license ... why am I rolling availability to get it?

Because you can still get them on the black market. Buying any good on a legal channel creates a lot of data for corps and others to mine that can be traced to your activities.

How long it takes to find the specialty shop that sells the stuff.

Reminds me that there was a cheap liquid cooling kit (like $50 new) made by the same company that made my mother board (offhand I'm not recalling the company name), and despite my best efforts I was unable to locate a place that actually sold it (for less than $200). Took me two days before I figured out why: they stopped producing them 3 years ago, so the ones that were still floating around had 300% markup on them.

They are still not available 24/7, if they have an availability rating. Only items without one are freely available (according to the SR4A description):

The rules only dictate that one uses availability rolling when purchasing controlled items on the black market. That would mean only for Restricted and Forbidden items.

Further, if you read under legality...



The book gives examples of special circumstances for items, specifically that you need a license to purchase an own a gun, but gives no indicator whether availability needs to be rolled if purchased through a legal channel. Considering the ubiquitous nature of the Matrix as well as the large data stores corps, law enforcement, and governments have on people, it is not unreasonable that you can walk into a store, flash your SIN/license and walk out with a gun. Most of what prevent people from doing that in the United States right now is laws that require stores to do a check on the employees, which takes time, or other arbitrary legal ruling such as "wait at least 3 days".

As I said, it is GM fiat how to handle purchasing goods through legal channels, and any ability to not get the product right away is purely GM fiat on scarcity without any rules basis (that I've found) to support that proposition.

That is not correct. The rules require you to roll for availability every time you buy anything on the black market.



That is the problem I mentioned earlier: We know that we don't have to roll for items without an availability rating, if purchased legally (available 24/7, pretty much). We also know we have to roll for all items purchased on the black market.
What we don't know is how to translate an availability code into actual availability for any item with an availability rating purchased legally on the open market.



I completely agree with you here.