pc motivation Options

[fool]

yeah I got this disease that makes me have to eat metahuman flesh. I'm gonna go tright down to the local authorities and tell em all about it ..... tommorrow.

[kigmatzomat]

Back to the original question about how SINless can be competent runners:

First off, SR4 runners aren't nearly the experts they were in earlier editions. Oh, they are quite competent but only the hyperspecialized are at the top of their game. A lot of these characters have skill levels I wouldn't be surprised to see on particularly bright college students.

Second, I don't think people realize how much can be learned when you are a) motivated by the need to eat/survive, b) aren't restricted to the pace of formal learning and c) have access to an internet chock full of data and VR training from birth. One exception individual I know was a high level unix admin, a nationally ranked fencer, and an excellent shot with rifle and pistol at age 20. His major in college? Poetry. (He never finished his degree, btw)

His dad was quite the paranoid schizo when he went off his meds (hence a significant arsenal of weapons and my friend's skill with them). Had the world been rougher and the paranoia more justifiable (and less obviously insanity) I could see my friend in the SINless shadows.

Home life and mental illness can both promote a life in the shadows.

So can plausible deniability. Think Dirty Harry and the wide range of "good cops gone vigilante" out to uphold the spirit of the law while breaking the letter one leg at a time.

Awakening is another good justification. "Hey, cool! I can do magic! Watch me levitate a pencil!" "Get out of my mind, Benejezerit witch!" Mages and Technomancers both have the risk of being dissected by the corps or forced into a new "career" not of their choosing. If you are forced to a life of violence, do you want it to be on your terms or those set by the VP of Expedient Affairs?

Going SINless is a kind of renegade "witness protection" service as well. Bad guys of all ilk can use the SIN system to locate you. Getting away from an abusive spouse or a particularly vindictive bureaucrat can be worth dropping off the edge of the world.

Then you've got the people who were skirting the shadows when the Crash2 happened. One of my characters was a DEA trainee who was kidnapped the day before the Crash. The agency basically forgot he existed in chaos and he had to take the "long way" home. Once he got there....he decided he wasn't ready to go back. PTSD, y'know. Happens when you're tortured, walk across a desert and spend 8 months at sea on a tramp steamer.