Cash vs SINs, How do you handle cash in your SR world? Options

[Kren Cooper]

So, something that's been on my mind a lot lately, trying to rationalise how the world works... cash, or rather the lack of it.

I'm still working on the SR3 rules / world building, so I don't know if this is something that has been updated in later versions. The SR3 rulebook on P238 describes SINs as having come about since 2036, that most people are registered at birth, that criminals caught who are SINless are then assigned a Criminal SIN and that life is difficult without one - as it's required for a legal job, opening a bank account, owning property, going to school, renting an apartment, establish utility services and any form of legal travel right down to buying a bus ticket.

From this, and other snippets through the book, I've always taken it that your SIN is your combined ID stick holding your entitlements (such as passport, visas, driving licences, gun licence, medical licence, any professional qualifications or competencies) and also acting as your debit/credit card and bank access stick - allowing you to slot your stick in the bus to pay for a trip (like a travelcard, oyster card or just a debit card on newer services), to paying for service at a Stuffer Shack or McRonalds, through to paying for a new suit at a high end store or renting a car at the airport.

On top of that of course are "certified credsticks" - the closest current analogy being something like an Amazon gift card - it's been loaded with a monetary value, but then has no real tracking - if you lose the card, you lose the value of it, and if you found one lying on the street, you can spend from it with no additional checks or ID. And as a result, a lot of Shadowrunners are paid with certified credsticks, as they provide a good cut-out for the Johnson or hiring corp.

And, in the main, most places don't *have* cash, let alone use cash. It's generally a rare thing in society and most "modern" cultures, and strongly pushed by the corps and the banks, both of which want to have full control and traceability of their drones and oppressed workers, who then can't do anything without their authority and tacit approval.


So - where does that leave the bottom rungs of society?
In my Smugglers game I recently threw a curveball at the players when they landed at a desert smuggler stop who wouldn't take cash for services - only "bottles", dealing in multiples of bottles of sealed and pure water as something that had immediate value and worth in that environment - that made sense to me there. But while clean potable water should still be valuable in the slums, it's not quite the same levels of life and death as out in the desert.
So how do beggers work sitting outside the transit terminals trying to get coin out of people?
How do you bribe or pay for off the book services from people out in the barrens?
How do you pay off those marauding gangers to leave you and your buddies alone, or to keep an eye on your stash?

I could see some enterprising beggars setting up outside transit terminals with clusters of vending machines, begging for people to buy them food, water, flats, small electronic items or chips and the like - so the SINner uses their stick as normal, but then hands the goods over to the SINless person.
Runners knowing they're heading into the barrens can use their fake SINs to go shopping and load up a cool box with beers, packet food, travel med-kits and sleeping bags from the army surplus shop, that will all have value to people on the streets - even someone who has a sleeping bag already will probably take a second, either for extra warmth or to barter on themselves later.
I could also see gangs backed by organised crime having the resources to actually have cred-readers for their protection rackets. "Hey, Mrs Kowalski. Nice place you have here. Looks kinda flammable though..." "Please don't hurt me - but I don't have cash, we haven't had any for years!" "Don't worry Mrs K - we take Amex and Mastercard..." Possibly going as far as the big organised gangs with chapters - the Ancients can do "business" like a store, I'm sure. But not the Red Hot Nukes or the 419ers...

But sometimes you just need to have street urchins that "might have seen something", or drifters that just need to tell the pursuing private eye that you went "the other way" down into the slums. And without cash or some other instant funds - how do you do that?

Do you still have cash circulating in your shadows and amongst the SINless? Is it the good old US dollar, crumpled, torn and badly faded - or something else? Or do your slums operate on an intensely confusing barter system with a constantly evolving exchange rate? How do you handle this at your table, and how much does it vary between different styles of games or campaign settings?