Do SR characters PAY for things?, Why do these criminal mastermind groups use money? Options

[FuelDrop]

I considered answering the OP's question by means of interpretative dance, but then i realized that even dumpshock isn't jaded enough to survive the sight of me dancing. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Runs like the OP's are good as far as they go, but I don't think any of us play the game to 'play it safe' and pull off what amounts to safe petty theft for the majority of our careers. Once in a while a bit of a resupply is good, but if you're going into business for yourself (as opposed to working for a Johnson) then I'd suggest you think big, simply because you're playing an RPG where you can do an awesome heist and theoretically get away with it. Anyway, even if you don't it doesn't matter as long as you had fun in the process, right?

Realistically, that's my only complaint with the OP's run: the street sam's player is sitting around doing nothing or, at best, gets to say "I help load the loot onto our truck", which probably isn't as fun for him as it is for the face or hacker. OTOH if the whole thing was his idea, then he may be perfectly happy with simply waiting for the loot at the group's safehouse then pulling out a cigar and saying "I love it when a plan comes together!" *A-team music plays in background*

[Shemhazai]

The Face goes to an office building and negotiates with the owner to rent an unused space near the docking bay for a week. He's disguised, of course, with a disposable ID, and has a good story about being an out-of-town salesperson who needs a meeting room and will set up some props delivered from his home office. When he's in he has a professional cleaning service come in and give the entry way to the office a thorough sprucing up. IKEA instant reception area and some generic TAGs with logos on the walls. Total cost: 1000 nuyen. (GM says "Ha! 3000!" Players grumble.) Total cost: 3000 nuyen.

As mentioned earlier, only a week is probably impossible. Maybe a place that specializes in short-term office space, a hotel or convention center would do it. Security deposit, first months rent, professional cleaning, office furniture, decor, fake ID with SIN that would pass a background check would cost way, way more than 3000 nuyen.

It takes a little doing, and includes having the face bribing an OSHA official to "borrow" his ID while he takes a look inside. The Hacker pours over the data gathered on the "safety inspection", and gets a nice overview of the model of robot he needs to hack.

That would be a costly bribe. Also, it would be impossible to subvert a supply chain by hacking only one robot. Any inventory mismatch would be detected at every link in the chain. Every place that checks the weight, dimensions, RFID tags, etc. would need to also be hacked. At the very least, if you assume that this is all taken care of by some central server, that server would need to be thoroughly owned.

A tech has been hired, or conscripted from within the team. He builds a Faraday cage in the back room of the office and gets a TAG eraser handy.

That talent would cost nuyen, plus the cost of constructing the cage itself. Were you planning on removing the cage too? That would take some time. You would need to unbox things because tag erasers need to be within one centimeter of the tag. Security tags would need to be destroyed, because they can't be erased this way, and steath tags would be undetectable by a comlink. I think a better idea would be to Faraday cage the inside of the van, and then drive the van into a Faraday caged garage so you could do a complete, non-rushed job of tag erasure.

The Hacker hacks. 86,000 nuyen of equipment is boxed and labeled for immediate delivery. It's going to the team's office. The Hacker makes the system think it's a load of fancy paper totaling 250 nuyen.

I would make this a complex task taking lots of time and possibly a group effort by a hacking team. Many systems would need to ignore the mistake. Also, why stop at 86,000 nuyen? Why not millions of nuyen? The system wouldn't detect that, either, correct? If it would, then what would allow the smaller amount to go undetected?

When [the Face is] done making the TAG's safe...The Face gets some industrial Lysol/solvent spray and hoses down everything in the small office.

Whoever does this would need the Hardware skill and I would require an Evidence Removal or Forensics skill. There is a Forensics Expert contact in Runner's Companion.

In all, even if you agree that the corp would be unable to make the risk/difficulty of this kind of heist commensurate to the reward, what would happen if the runners were entirely successful? They would have a truckload of stolen merchandise. The final street value of stolen merchandise is -20%. Trying to fence many of the same items could flood the market temporarily, which would mean another -10% to the final value. Fencing gear will get you a base of 30% of that. Using your example, (86,000 - 20%) * 30% = 20,640 nuyen total. Stealing a million nuyen worth would net 240,000, and would be about right for getting the right talent and doing things the right way. Otherwise, you could use the stuff yourself and risk not only being caught using stolen merchandise, but also being directly linked to pulling the heist in the first place!

You also piss off the corps involved in the supply chain, law enforcement, and organized crime (I hope the fulfillment center wasn't paying protection to anyone). Those are powerful enemies. If something happened to reveal the runners' identities, the GM should consider assigning negative qualities like Enemy and add some reputation, fame (people are still talking about that Air France job) or notoriety.

In all, I think if the GM makes the job very tough (probably needing a hacking group), and tones down the reward expectations, you could get some cool consumer goods and non-restricted gear to fence. In the bargain, there would be some risks that make for interesting plot devices in the future. Maybe a cool idea if the group is mostly hackers.

[Sid Nitzerglobin]

[2]: Far more likely, they'll adopt a 'no witnesses' policy, shoot every living thing around, and firebomb any place where any living thing could be hiding.

Men after my own heart...

[Thorguild]

While that specific plan has more holes than Swiss cheese, I have no problem with a run to get gear. My characters have done quite a few scenarios for runs they've come up with themselves. The cost of the gear they get is usually in line with what they are stealing.

Well, I did ask at the beginning to have people point out flaws in the plan. Please go ahead!

Two things to keep in mind: 1) Britain already has ubiquitous CCTV and has had very little decrease in crime rates. 2) This shouldn't be harder than a GM Run against a hardened facility.

(Personally, I like the planning stage of the run. We get to be creative. And, sure, paranoia is part of the game. The trick is fitting in a world with super cameras, unlimited storage, people recognition software and AI, AND a whole subculture of people who break laws for a living and have been doing it for three generations.)

So help me out, Fortinbras, and improve my plan.

Thorguild

[Thorguild]

Shemhazai,

It looks like this thread has already broken down into those who think it would work, and those who don't. I continue to stand by the idea that this shouldn't be harder than what the runners already do. I also recognize that there are those who think it SHOULD be.

But to answer some specifics in your post: $2,000 will get you this office space today for a month. I also priced out the furniture, and labor, etc. $6k.

Concerning the hack itself, if the SR world itself checked everything every second, then SR hackers would be capable of dealing with this. It's already part of the hack itself. I also stand by the belief that if the security was as good as some of the fluff says, then no SR game would be possible.

As to the Faraday cage requiring a tech that costs more than the stated price for Faraday cages, electronics skill roll in using a TAG eraser, and Forensics skill to apply lysol, those sound like house rules. While I don't personally want to play in a game that has such restrictions, I wish you the best in running your own.

However the real reason I wanted to reply was that I'm not sure you understood the goal. This wasn't to procure a bunch of stuff that could be fenced. This was really to get the SR team the material they wanted and needed for lifestyle, gear, and style upgrades.

Best regards,

Thorguild

[Fortinbras]

So help me out, Fortinbras, and improve my plan.

That depends. Are you planning this heist as a GM or as a player?
If you are planning this run as a GM, then you need to find some points of action. Imagine you are the shipping company and this has been done to you a million times before. What steps have you taken to ensure the security of your package? This is stuff the players should have to fight. Think bullets, magic and matrix. There should be some problem at all three levels the players should have to get through.
Remember that nothing ever goes according to plan.(I used to work in shipping and nothing /ever/ goes right!) Maybe another runner team or a go gang or someone got wind of this little free for all and is going to try and hit the package before the runners? Maybe the routing number is one digit off and the runners get crates full of baby formula so now they have to infiltrate an acrchology day care to get their gear?
A run needs three stages of planning. The first is the meta-idea, which you have. What's going on, what will happen and why; that sort of thing. The second is to make all of those place and people real. All the folks should be real people with real goals and all the places should have a daily functionality. Someone built a thing for a reason; it's never just there to be broken into. The Third step is to view this as a series of plot and action points for the actual run. This isn't true of OSR games, where it is a simple dungeon crawl. If you have more of an old school feel to your game, you can skip this step. Others, however, find the need to put in points to break up the planning and infiltration and make some points where things will get hot, lives will be put in danger and players will get to use all the cool stuff they've bought with points and nuyen. In my experience, player like rolling dice. They like doing a thing WAY more than having a thing. Give them things to do and make sure that no run is ever "minimal risk."

If you are prepping this as a player run, most flaws I see have already been addressed. Things like the sammy won't have much to do, folks are unlikely to ship Forbidden items anonymously, people may remember the Face, "the hacker hacks" should be far more complicated than you imagine it, renting things is never a good idea, what about magical tracking, etc. Most folks have covered any problems I have with it over 5 pages of posts.
The way it's written currently isn't really a run. There is no conflict for anyone other than the face and the hacker(who is doing some mighty heavy lifting) so you're asking the GM to come up with complications. GMs are sick bastards, so I wouldn't tempt them.

1) Britain already has ubiquitous CCTV and has had very little decrease in crime rates.

YES! This. A million times this! Finally, someone who gets it. For some reason folks have difficulty believing a dystopia can exist if there are cameras everywhere. The expansion of the Matrix gives some people the idea that every move of every person is tracked 24/7. Bollocks! I'll believe this when they catch Bansky and when one of those background check websites can find any real information about me.
Cameras are never the thing you should worry about in Shadowrun. It's people watching you, spirits hanging about, buying too much after a heist and just general lack of common sense that gets you every time.
My favorite example is from Heat. De Niro did everything right, cut the CCTV, immobilized air support, etc. But what got him? A hobo and Tone Loc. There will always be hobos and Tone Loc. Pack ammo accordingly.

[StealthSigma]

It looks like this thread has already broken down into those who think it would work, and those who don't. I continue to stand by the idea that this shouldn't be harder than what the runners already do. I also recognize that there are those who think it SHOULD be.

I think the plan will work.

I think there are personnel issues involved when runners start doing this work and I think there are issues that can arrived based on the quantity heisted. I think that the runners are going to have issues with fencing the goods. I also think that this is less cost effective than just going to your local black market dealer and getting the goods.

Markets, even black markets, are not inelastic. You're going to start to ruffle some feathers by doing such a job. As a crime is committed more and more often, guards and watches are going to be put in place to try to catch culprits. Depending on the quantity or type of good, a few misplaced items here and there isn't going to draw huge amounts of attention, but when pallets of goods start going missing that's going to draw ire.

So the guys that usually get this stuff have a couple of different people involved. There's probably some guy on the inside who gets his palms greased to get the stuff out. There's going to be some sort of hacker that covers up the trail. You have any smuggler's necessary to move the goods from point A to point B. You have the fence which launders the goods. Finally you have the black market seller.

As more and more is stolen, the inside guy isn't going to be able to get the goods out because of the closer scrutiny. Without him moving the goods out, the hacker is out of the job. Likewise, the smuggler doesn't need to move the goods. The fence won't have the goods to sell to the black market dealer. The dealer's inventory starts running dry and he can't turn a profit. As each of the people has less income, they have less money to keep their wheels greased to keep the flow of goods moving and safe. The whole black market system is a tuned machine to maximize revenue and minimize risk for those involved by minimizing the flow of goods to lower risk, lower supply, and therefore drive prices up.

By having runners engaging in this behavior you run into a problem with shortage rather than artificially restricted supplies. Shortage is going to make people angry and they're going to look for who is to blame. That is, of course, assuming that whoever you try to fence the goods to is going to accept the bulk you're trying to sell. He may very well refuse it because of the quantity you're dealing with. This boils back to while I think it may be less cost effective than just buying the stuff. In everything there is an opportunity cost. By planning and pulling this run you are forgoing other, more stable, work as a runner for the potential payoff presented by the higher priced goods. That's the problem. It's a potential payoff. The revenue does magically generate itself, you need to be able to move all the goods which will take time or will severely degrade the price if you try to move it all at once.

Okay, so the below is a house rule I came up with for handling fenced goods.

Test
Fencing a good (selling to fence): Charisma + Negotiation (10, 6 hour)
Selling a good (selling to anyone but a fence): Charisma + Negotiation (10, 12 hour) Can only sell one at a time for non-consumable items.

All objects are considered either heisted or looted.

There are a couple modifiers that I believe apply for selling goods to fences. None of these listed modifiers apply when directly selling the good
* Initial asking price is 50% rather than 30% regardless of dealing with a fence or a direct buyer.
* Modifiers are applied manipulatively rather than additively.
* If the object being fenced was specifically targeted for theft to fence then a -20% modifier applies. Only applies to heisted items. (he probably heard about the heist).
* If you're trying to sell more than 5% of the stolen quantity, apply the -10% modifier for flooding the market. Only applies to heisted items. (your not part of his trusted network).
* If the item was looted from someone, apply the -20% modifier for used item. Only applies to looted items. (there will be signs that the item is used unless you take the effort to recondition the item).
* If the item is high profile enough to have been used in a crime, apply the -10% modifier. Applies to heisted and looted items. (most likely will only be vehicles).
* All other street cost modifiers are ignored for fencing.
* After these modifiers are multiplied out, the fetching price must be at least 1% of listed price. If it is not, the item cannot be fenced.
* After all modifiers are applied, the cost may be adjusted down by 5% for +1 die on the check or adjusted up by 5% at the cost of 2 dice. If the modified fetching price is 11%, it may be adjusted down to 1% for +2 dice or up to 21% for -4 dice.
* Nuyen received is always rounded down to a whole number.

So, for example, let's say you heist a shipment of 20 Ares Predator IV's. You have a Negotiation dice pool of 12. They have a listed price of 350. Initially, the Predator would fence for 175. However, since they were stolen as part of a shipment the -20% is applied so now you're at 10% of listed price for 35 apiece (700 for 20 Predators). If you want to move them all at once, you're going to get 1% of the listed price which is 3.5 rounded down to 3 apiece (60 nuyen for 20 Predators). Assuming you buy hits, it will take you ~1 day to make a 60 nuyen revenue. That means to sell them one at a time to a fence (to get maximum revenue from the fence) would take ~20 sleepless days to do. On the other hand, if you were to hit the streets to find a buyer you would be able to get 175 for each one (3500 total revenue) but it would take you 40 sleepless days to move all the goods.

[ShadowDragon8685]

That's ridiculous, StealthSigma.

The Ares Predator IV is the most sought-after gun in the Shadows by virtue of its unrivaled cheapness-to-utility ratio. You could easily hock a crate of 60 of them by going to your Friendly Local Ancients Lieutenant and saying "You want these?" And you'll walk out with about 6500-10,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) right there.

[StealthSigma]

That's ridiculous, StealthSigma.

The Ares Predator IV is the most sought-after gun in the Shadows by virtue of its unrivaled cheapness-to-utility ratio. You could easily hock a crate of 60 of them by going to your Friendly Local Ancients Lieutenant and saying "You want these?" And you'll walk out with about 6500-10,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) right there.

I did my math wrong. I was applying values at -80% or -90% instead of -10% or -20%.

Need to revert back to 30% base price like in the rules and multiple out. 0.3 * 0.8 * 0.9 = 21.6% = 75 per Predator which means 4500 for the lot. I'm considering 20% starting value which would make it 14.4% or 50 nuyen per Predator (3000 for the lot).

The point is that runners should be doing runs, not organizing heists to profit off the goods. The financial incentive to do heists over runs should not exist. If you want to run such a campaign, then do so but recognize that you are no longer runners and have instead become smugglers and an essential part of the black market, in which case most of my suggested rules would not apply as the necessary contacts would like be contacts of yours and established business partners.

[CanRay]

The Ares Predator IV is the most sought-after gun in the Shadows by virtue of its unrivaled cheapness-to-utility ratio. You could easily hock a crate of 60 of them by going to your Friendly Local Ancients Lieutenant and saying "You want these?" And you'll walk out with about 6500-10,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) right there.

They might pay you in BTL Chips, Kilos of NovaCoke, or used troll-sized cybernetics, however. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Of course, if you sell them cheap with the idea that you're doing them a favour you'll ask for in return someday, that's a Go-Gang that can escort you to the Elven District's Safehouses. Or even out of the Sprawl. And that's worth far more than Nuyen.

[Fortinbras]

They might pay you in BTL Chips, Kilos of NovaCoke, or used troll-sized cybernetics, however. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

They might even pay you in cows of Novacoke!

[ShadowDragon8685]

They might pay you in BTL Chips, Kilos of NovaCoke, or used troll-sized cybernetics, however. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Or other guns. If you need guns, the Ancients are the best people to talk to on short notice... Or even medium notice, for that matter.

Need a couple of cheap rocket launchers? That's probably worth a crate of Predators.

Of course, if you sell them cheap with the idea that you're doing them a favour you'll ask for in return someday, that's a Go-Gang that can escort you to the Elven District's Safehouses. Or even out of the Sprawl. And that's worth far more than Nuyen.

Oh yes. My group are very happy to have an Ancients LT as a contact. They recently wound up in a situation where they need to bestow physical violence unto DocWagon customers, and decided that as long as they were breaking legs, they should get paid twice for the job. So they called Cynthia up and asked if she needed any legs attached to torsos which were themselves attached to arms which were wearing DocWagon bracelets broken. Yes. Yes she did.

They might even pay you in cows of Novacoke!

Those never really worked right. On the other hand, the steaks made from that cow were so delicious, you could never have just one. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[_Pax._]

Of course, if you sell them cheap with the idea that you're doing them a favour you'll ask for in return someday, that's a Go-Gang that can escort you to the Elven District's Safehouses. Or even out of the Sprawl. And that's worth far more than Nuyen.

Yep. It's worth a Group Contact at Loyalty 1. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[FuelDrop]

Oh yes. My group are very happy to have an Ancients LT as a contact.

Our Ancients contact came down with a bad case of exploding head syndrome after our first run for him. He:
1) Gave us such lousy intel that the run was almost ruined because of it (Specifically that the target shipment was in two white vans, not a black truck).
2) Had another team hired to ambush us after we showed up at the drop point.
3) Ambushed us himself after we minced his first ambush team (we believe he intended to show up as 'the cavalry' and 'save' us from the first team).
4) Failed to show the group's only human member even an ounce of respect (He's the reason we got through the first ambush and his precautions [splitting the loot and driving it by multiple routes] gave us leverage after the other ambush was fought to a draw).
5) Paying us less for the run than his ambushes cost us in repairs.

And after all that he still expected us to work with him again.
Um... no.

[Shemhazai]

But to answer some specifics in your post: $2,000 will get you this office space today for a month. I also priced out the furniture, and labor, etc. $6k.

As to the Faraday cage requiring a tech that costs more than the stated price for Faraday cages, electronics skill roll in using a TAG eraser, and Forensics skill to apply lysol, those sound like house rules. While I don't personally want to play in a game that has such restrictions, I wish you the best in running your own.

However the real reason I wanted to reply was that I'm not sure you understood the goal. This wasn't to procure a bunch of stuff that could be fenced. This was really to get the SR team the material they wanted and needed for lifestyle, gear, and style upgrades.

The base price of a level 6 fake SIN is 6,000 by itself. You would be crazy to skimp on that, because having it detected during the background check would have the police waiting for you when you arrived. You would be crazy to reuse it after the heist. They will require a security deposit, plus some rent up front. I would go light on the office trappings and maybe mention that I was expecting a big shipment of office stuff.

I think the price listed for the Faraday cage is for the gear only, and does not include installation by an outsourced tech. I think your original plan had a tech, but if this is something that can be done by a layperson with maybe a book on the subject, great. I do think that there should be two cages: one in the van and a bigger one in a garage.

I misread the rules about altering tag data. I agree; tag erasing should be doable by anyone.

I don't think spraying household disinfectant sufficiently removes evidence. I would want the person doing the evidence removal to know something about how to do it. It's not a common skill. There is a contact who is an expert in this field.

I know that you wanted the PCs to use the gear. Doing that could be disastrous. Using stolen merchandise carries little risk, but if your gear were linked to a high profile job, it could trigger an investigation into YOU. The cops would want to know how you came upon the items and if you have any relationship to the perpetrators. They will try to trace it back to the source. What if they found evidence that you WERE the source?

As for the hacks, there might be several approaches. Using your approach, you would need to get some of the systems to run corrupted software. Forcing the picking system system to retrieve the wrong merchandise when it sees your order number, and to ignore discrepancies like the packaging and weights being totally wrong would take code. Suppressing any inventory management warnings when it notices that the wrong RFID tags are moving around would take more code. Making the shipping system ignore all the wrong stuff going out the back door and into a truck would take even more code. Plenty of custom software based on intel regarding the center's operations.

The computers would be moderately secure, because nobody wants to lose millions. Comparing this job to hacking a hardened black ops research facility doesn't make clear what is being done. It would be much easier to steal data from a fulfillment center than a black site, no doubt about it. But could you steal this kind of money from a black site's research budget?

[ShadowDragon8685]

Our Ancients contact came down with a bad case of exploding head syndrome after our first run for him. He:
1) Gave us such lousy intel that the run was almost ruined because of it (Specifically that the target shipment was in two white vans, not a black truck).
2) Had another team hired to ambush us after we showed up at the drop point.
3) Ambushed us himself after we minced his first ambush team (we believe he intended to show up as 'the cavalry' and 'save' us from the first team).
4) Failed to show the group's only human member even an ounce of respect (He's the reason we got through the first ambush and his precautions [splitting the loot and driving it by multiple routes] gave us leverage after the other ambush was fought to a draw).
5) Paying us less for the run than his ambushes cost us in repairs.

And after all that he still expected us to work with him again.
Um... no.

Your GM must like you a lot less than I like my players. Their Ancients contact:
1: Has provided good, solid intel to the best of their abilities, including pointing out the bits that are pure speculation on their point.
2: Told then up-front that the mission they were planning was probably suicidal because it was a theft from the Vory.
3: Actually went with them when the Run went way south (literally; to CalFree) after the group's AI FUBAR'd it and got the shipping container they were planning to have put on the wrong truck dumped in the pacific ocean.
4: Has a huge crush on the group's human mage and wants him to shag her rotten. She also backhanded one of her men when it turned out the group (who have gotten good results thus far) had recruited a troll, and he started mouthing off at said troll.*
5: Wait, you actually got paid? The traditional Seattle Doublecross does not involve the doublecrossee getting paid. Did this assclown have fucking rocks for brains?



*Some people are just plain fucking dumb. Even if you don't like trogs, mouthing off at a guy who can literally punch your block off, in the middle of an armed fortress his shadowrunning team lives in, with his team present, is asking for trouble. She still had to pass a Leadership check to keep control of the posse, though.

Hum.. Now I think about it, Cynthia's probably not a very good Ancient when it comes to their core competencies of bigotry and prejudice, what with wanting the breeder to jump her bones and having had a torrid affair with an ork woman that she now needs the group to help cover up for her... She makes up by being one of the baddest riders in Seattle, though. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[FuelDrop]

5: Wait, you actually got paid? The traditional Seattle Doublecross does not involve the doublecrossee getting paid. Did this assclown have fucking rocks for brains?

Actually, if the Ex-ex round my former government assassin sniped him with is any indication, his head was full of hot air.
It seems that his standard operating practice is to use the first ambush to get his new runners in dire straights, then he comes in to rescue them and thus they owe him. We didn't follow the script and apparently our resourcefulness impressed him, so he decided we'd be assets worth having.

apparently the possibility that we wouldn't be interested in working with someone who betrayed us repeatedly didn't even occur to him. I think he was banking on his elven charisma to charm us all... Needless to say, it didn't work.

Oh, and threatening the sniper's girlfriend? Now I've written everything this guy did down I'm beginning to suspect that he had a secret death wish.

[_Pax._]

I don't think spraying household disinfectant sufficiently removes evidence. I would want the person doing the evidence removal to know something about how to do it. It's not a common skill. There is a contact who is an expert in this field.

Just so you know: C-squared isn't just "household disinfectant" ... it's the kind of ultra-concentrate that's so caustic, you don't handle without wearing gloves. Not if you want to keep having skin, anyway.

Also, it doesn't remove evidence - just ... damages the biological elements of it, so that it's harder for anyone to extract forensically useful information afterwards. Particularly trace DNA.

[CanRay]

And you have to make sure you're not using the SAME C-Squared all the time, either, as that's also a fingerprint. I'm sure there's various different recipes for it that are used (Thus different ratings!).

[ShadowDragon8685]

Actually, if the Ex-ex round my former government assassin sniped him with is any indication, his head was full of hot air.
It seems that his standard operating practice is to use the first ambush to get his new runners in dire straights, then he comes in to rescue them and thus they owe him. We didn't follow the script and apparently our resourcefulness impressed him, so he decided we'd be assets worth having.

apparently the possibility that we wouldn't be interested in working with someone who betrayed us repeatedly didn't even occur to him. I think he was banking on his elven charisma to charm us all... Needless to say, it didn't work.

Oh, and threatening the sniper's girlfriend? Now I've written everything this guy did down I'm beginning to suspect that he had a secret death wish.

I'm beginning to suspect you're right!

[CanRay]

Actually, if the Ex-ex round my former government assassin sniped him with is any indication, his head was full of hot air.
It seems that his standard operating practice is to use the first ambush to get his new runners in dire straights, then he comes in to rescue them and thus they owe him. We didn't follow the script and apparently our resourcefulness impressed him, so he decided we'd be assets worth having.

apparently the possibility that we wouldn't be interested in working with someone who betrayed us repeatedly didn't even occur to him. I think he was banking on his elven charisma to charm us all... Needless to say, it didn't work.

Oh, and threatening the sniper's girlfriend? Now I've written everything this guy did down I'm beginning to suspect that he had a secret death wish.

And on next week's episode of "When Pornomancers Fail..."

[FuelDrop]

And on next week's episode of "When Pornomancers Fail..."

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

To be entirely honest, the rest of the group is unaware that my character is responsible for the contacts death. He then followed through by faking his own death in order to protect the group from retaliation, and has recently resurfaced as a contact, getting in touch with the rigger (his 'girlfriend', though there are questions about how formal the relationship is). At the moment he's working as a private detective under yet another assumed name (his list of aliases currently stands as: Joel Hardinger, Alex West, Damien Mercer, Peter Johnson, Terry James, Dr. Mark Strauss (Art Historian). That's not even counting the list of call signs he went by when he worked for the government).

[Midas]

That's ridiculous, StealthSigma.

The Ares Predator IV is the most sought-after gun in the Shadows by virtue of its unrivaled cheapness-to-utility ratio. You could easily hock a crate of 60 of them by going to your Friendly Local Ancients Lieutenant and saying "You want these?" And you'll walk out with about 6500-10,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) right there.

I will agree with you that StealthSigma's house rules for fencing goods seem quite awkward, but I think your estimate is a little on the high side, and assumes 1) A high-ish level Ancients contact, 2) a pornomancer-esque face, and 3) that the streets aren't already awash with guns.

Taking your example of 60 Ares Predator IV's still in their boxes, 30% standard fence price of retail value 21,000 newyen is 6,300 newyen. Because the deal involves bulk and any group large enough to want to take all 60 will use a reasonably competent negotiator to run the deal, and will expect a discount for buying in bulk. On top of this, the the PCs should be suffering a lot of negative DP modifiers to their negotiation roll.

I would probably set the ball rolling at 20% retail price (i.e. 4.200 for 60) and take it from there, but YMMV.

[CanRay]

There's also the fact that these are likely "Clean" Ares Predator IVs, with no criminal history behind them, which will up the price.

[Midas]

There's also the fact that these are likely "Clean" Ares Predator IVs, with no criminal history behind them, which will up not lower the price.

Fixed that for you. Think there are negative price modifiers in the BBB for an item being hot/recently used in a criminal activity.