Notoriety, Where do you draw the line? Options

[fistandantilus4....]

This question occured to me a bit ago. I was going over some PCs from an old game, and one of my players was talking about something that happened in one of the games he ran. let me give you some examples of the notoriety we're looking at. I'm trying to decide when people would stop approaching PCs for jobs.

Runner #1
-Hacked Ares to get them to deliver a MP Laser for free. Fucked up and ended up working for them for 5 years w/ a cranial bomb for his pay incentive.
-Let off the hook , working one job with another team, calls Ares contact to get some intel, almsot compromises the job because Ares became interested in the op.
-Blew a high profile job in a very public manner.
+Has mod amount of street cred

Runner #2
-Took a job from a J to take out another team. Took all the money up front (90K) which J paid "to ensure the job was completed). Then double crossed the J and joined the team. Kept the money.

Runner #3
-Known in Seattle for killing a dragon (Geyswain in Bottled Demon, he was standing on the dragon's head on the roof, sword in hand, news crews got a good shot)
-Bounty on his head from Seattle STAR for killing cops (plural)
-known orc hater, killed a bunch of orcs in a bar fight
-Voodoo practitioner, Red Sect. known to use zombies, torture, etc
- Also blew same public job specatularily.
+has high street Cred

Runner #4
-Also blew high profile job in public
-hacker with infirm neg quality, attributed to be extremely lazy and obese
-hacked a mafia consiglierie's commlink, got spotted, but got away. The consigliere was another PC's contact. The PC found out, and is holding it over his head
+has some street cred

Now for frame of reference, some of these are in games I ran , some are not. I'm trying to guage just where their notoriety should be at, and if any of these guys are liekly to get jobs again. As not all of them aren't my games, not really interested in where a GM may have gone wrong, more interested in where their notoriety should be ranked at. Some of them also have a lot of street cred to balance it.

[Spike]

Runner 1: What did he do for Ares in that time? Most people will probably assume that he either still works for Ares (just on a longer tether) or he's got a serious mad on for them (if he acts like he hates them)... probably the former. As long as people are cool with Ares they might still hire him, but he's not going to get known as a 'great hire' based on his visible fuckups. Ares will probably use him in a heartbeat.

Runner 2: This is why Johnsons never pay all upfront. In the shadows he probably isn't suffering any rep problems at all, but negotiations with Johnsons in the future are going to be heavily strained. Good luck getting any up front ever again.

Runner 3: No Rep problems per se, though the Star and any Ork groups will hate him on sight. As a runner goes, he's going to be pretty well off, what with the dragon and the obvious power/ruthlessness. He'll likely get offers from Humanis or for more brutal runs than nice cushy jobs.

Runner 4: Chump. Failure after failure, backstabbing and not cut out for runner work. Lazy obese runners become contacts for other runners for support, they don't get hired directly to 'infiltrate the compound and steal x data'... particularly if they've got a history of mucking things up.

Thats my take based on what we know. I assume you mostly listed failures, but successful jobs have happened as well...

[fistandantilus4....]

The ones w/ strret cred have had successful runs

1) He did wet work. All wet work. He wasn't an assasin type before Ares.

3) for reference, he's an elf, Orks really hate him. He's in New Orleans. This one I am running

[Spike]

Being an Elf only means that Humanis wouldn't openly hire him, they'll use cutouts. All the better, if he dies in the Run, well that's on less Elf in the world on top! ;)

[fistandantilus4....]

Good point! :D

[Thane36425]

[deek]

I think it also depends on some of these guys' contacts. You may do things differently, but often times its some of the player's contacts that are getting the initial info, basically screening, especially if they have a high loyalty.

I would agree with the above poster on the direct hires, that a couple of those players are likely not going to be approached. I run for a group of 4 friends and all of them have separate contacts from before they grouped up, so jobs get offered to one of them and they then put their group together. At times, even when they are directly approached, the whole group may not be in attendance.

And really, we are about to have a change of geography for my campaign partly because it is getting harder for the group to get offers. The last couple of runs have been things they have gone out and found, so even when he notoriety starts climbing, an easy alternative is to change scenery...

[X-Kalibur]

Well, notoriety and street cred both say they should only apply to tests where the subject is aware of them. Some of them might also qualify more for Public Awareness (in the case of star killing and dragon slaying) than notoriety. Especially given that killing the Star is likely to be a common occurence for 'runners, if you must give them notoriety for it, give them 1 like suggested, but then only make it count against them when dealing with the star.

I had more of a point to make but I got distracted by work and forgot it. Oh well.

[fistandantilus4....]

[Fezig]

Hmm...well that much star killing could gain someone the label of sloppy, especially with the public failures taken into account. I would definitely give them a minus to dealing with the star, and possibly the label as a risky hire due to potential heat he brings on.

[Fix-it]

How is number 3 not dead yet?

[fistandantilus4....]

He's currently in New Orleans, where the New Orleans Police Service holds sway. No Star to speak of. And lives out in the swamp. He's almost died a number of times. He used his Hand of God when a bunch of orks at a bar called the RazorBack recognized him, jumped him, and beat the crap out of him, along with a couple of trolls, then tossed him in to the river.

He came back later, channeling a Loa, and killed the everyone outside. That was another point of notoriety.

He's had a nuber of near death experiences but always seems to manage to come back. I let players buy back the Hand of God with something called the "Oh Shit" card for 50 karma. He used that as well when he got gunned down from behind.

He found the guys that shot him, killed the first guy and his girlfriend, animated them as zombis, and made them kill the thrid guy involved in the shooting. IIRC ,his notoriety is currently at around 9, but his Street cred is a lot higher.

[lorechaser]

Imho:

[Seven-7]

There are two types of criminals that people/johnsons look for to do things for money:

1. Meat bags (Low life scum)
2. Professionals (Shadowrunners/Edgerunners)

There are three main ways to hire Runners:

1. Corporate Johnson contacts fixer who then looks over his roster (like a modeling agent) and then contacts one of a few teams to go meet.
2. Corporate Johnson skips the Fixer and pulls up /his/ roster (IE Sr3 Comp's Fuchi dude).
3. Joe Smith gets drunk one night and talks about how if only his boss would get hit by a truck he'd get the promotion. Friend happens to know someone with a gun...ect

The above lists are of course not comprehensive, but its a basic guideline I use. Is the person looking for some street thugs? If so, is he a Corp John? Does he have the type of people in his roster or does he want to hire out? If so then do the guys you listed have a fixer that likes them and is willing to say "ER, no, I'd rather these guys stay alive." or "Sure, gimmie thirty percent and have your way with these guys who are probably gonna get shot buy LS or the cops anyhow. Profit!"

[SinN]

[fistandantilus4....]

One of the last two. Can't decide which. :P

[Fezig]

since skill creates luck, we can assume crazy involves stupidity for balanced sake. If I had my pick of one of those two combinations...I'd have to hear more details :P

[MaxHunter]

I mostly agree with lorechaser up there.

However, public knowledge is indeed a problem. In my usual games everything tends to be much more subtle...

For number 3: I like the "badass elf who's coming to get ya" angle but eventually this becomes so well known that it becomes a compromise to most SHADOWruns.

He could continue working in a Lobo kind of way, until someone finally scrags him or he retires and becomes an urban legend.

I have told my players in advance that if their public awareness scores ever hits a -rather high- mark, then their characters would become NPCs because they would belong to something different to Shadowrun and that's not what I want to play. Worked beautifully and so far nobody is even close to the mark.

Cheers,

Max

[Lady Door]

So, I have a question for everyone: How much notoriety would you give a runner who walked away from a job? In our game, (the one mentioned previously that ended spectacularly horrible) my character, Lucky, took the job and the up front payment. The job started to go south in a rather loud fashion and the character walked. The job might have worked if Lucky had stayed or it might have ended the same way. There's no real way of knowing. What I'm interested in knowing is how much notoriety would you give in that situation? What other ways have characters earned notoriety in your games?

[pestulens]

[fistandantilus4....]

The team did. So did the bug spirits (mantids) that were hunting the team.
None of the team died, but they came close. She walked because she decided that it was a bad plan, and din't like that they had mantid spirits hunting them. She walked before the team went through with their plan.

Lucky was the team face, to stick her into an archtype. The character is a mafioso, the rest are runners. She was doing a shadowrun along with them.

[Lady Door]

To be more specific, the character walked because A.)the plan had two many holes and B.)the team was going to bring in voudoun's and Lucky wasn't for that. She made it clear that if they brought in the voudoun's she would walk.

[pestulens]

Ok, I thought she abandoned the teem mid run, witch would be really bad. Just taking you're ball and going home makes you seem like an ass, not a risk. not returning the up front mony is mabe 1 point. If the other caricters make a stink about it it might cost you a point of street creed to. (Book doesn't say anyting about losing creed but being an ass isn't worth notoriety)
Of corse it also depends on just how bad the plan was. did they know they where going up against insect spirits from the beginning or was that a suppress?

[Lady Door]

The team knew that insect spirits were part of the equation, they just didn't expect them to show up at that particular juncture.

[Pyritefoolsgold]

Really, it would only be an in-team thing, unless the team members decided to blab. They might be rather pissed at him, but that's more of an in-character thing.