SINs and how to make the good ones fail, ideally in a non-catastrophic way. Options

[ZorbaTHut]

I have several players with very high-quality fake SINs. I'm curious about what sort of things a high-end fake SIN might fail on that a low-end one wouldn't, besides just "oh look I rolled the dice really badly". With all the things I can think of - trying to get into a high-security military facility, etc - just having a SIN isn't the hard part, everything else is. Even with air travel, I doubt you need a high-level SIN.

I'd kind of like to start exploiting SINs more extensively, but so far I just haven't bothered - they've almost all got level 4 or above, and I simply haven't been able to justify saying "yeah, the police in this suburb are really, really careful about people having the right SIN". To make things even harder, I'd rather their first failure not be catastrophic - I'm looking for something along the lines of "well, you don't have a valid SIN, so you can't get into this top-secret military facility when you thought you'd be able to just walk right in. Sorry! Guess you'll just have to go home." which, for obvious reasons, is problematical.

Suggestions?

[The Jopp]

[Sma]

In previous editions failing a sincheck, triggered a question-answer session that ran off a opposed skill check. Computer systems simply glitch from time to time, so that a even a legal SIN would have to go through this process. This makes failing a check from time to time not catastrophic.

[Draconis]

This came up briefly in another thread. In my experience with SR4 high quality SINs are rather cheap. So your problem tends to crop up often.

Um SINs that allow access to top secret military facilities aren't generally available on the open market no matter what "rating" you have. Look ma, I'm now an admiral in the Bolivian navy.

A SIN is correlated info in various databases. If you don't have info in "key" databases you're never going to be allowed in. The more databases you're in generally the higher the rating. But here's the caveat, the system is abstract, so while you can have a rating 6 and have data in say the DMV, a utility company, social security, etc etc of the more common databases that would allow you to sleaze past airport security, if you haven't got a hit in the DOD database you're never going to get onto that military base. That's GMs fiat.

The upshot is I would mark certain high security SINs special access. I would also probably give them limited uses (roll randomly add a modifer based on rating) before they become useless and just fail or even worse get red flagged; "detain user, use of force authorized", depending on areas accessed. The SIN can only stand so much scrutiny by the system before it's found out.

I.E. if you use a SIN to get into a building and then start a gunfight you can kiss that SIN goodbye. It's probably been red flagged.

Voila, real life uncertainty. Will that SIN you used last run get you in the building or will it immediately notify security?

Of course this could all be incoherent gibberish. I've been up all night, sleeeeep.

[Aaron]

I've found that since the dice pools for SIN verification are so low, the whole procedure is a dicey situation (no pun intended, but now that it's there I stand by it).

I'm happy with the situation. It allows me to inject tension into, say, a border crossing when I want it, and just handwave it if I don't. Also, the failure rate of even a Rating 6 fake SIN is enough to keep them disposable, which is the way I think it should be.

[Buster]

[Kyoto Kid]

[Irian]

[kigmatzomat]

I generally don't let low-rated SINs have Licenses. There are too many checks and cross-references for a weak SIN to let you carry a gun. By the same token, any combat-type cyber requires a pretty solid SIN to let you board commercial aircraft or cross a border with sensors.

A newly minted weak SIN might be able to survive for a few days with a License, as long as no one does any serious verification (meaning you have appointments and they know you're coming armed).

[deek]

[Irian]

What IS low-rated? 3? 2? 1? 4? 5? 6 without Charisma 14? I searched really hard, but there seem to be no values for the average ID checker... What does a cop in his car have? What does an airport have?
Problem is, that a failed ID test can very quickly end a shadowrunner's life, so I personally think, that the differences are really a little bit to small between 1 and 6.

[deek]

Here is what a "quick" border crossing in SR Missions consists of:

Fake SIN Rating + Charisma + Etiquette with a threshold of TR/2.

Failure means you have to pay 300 nuyen to get across.
Glitch means it takes longer than normal and pay 300 nuyen.
Critical Glitch means one piece of forbidden or restricted gear is confiscated and 500 nuyen bribe must be paid.

Teamwork tests apply if crossing as a group.

I think that these rules can be used as a basis for general security checks as well, but as you can see, this is not an opposed roll, just a check... It has worked rather well for our campaign.

[MaxHunter]

our group tends to "flesh out" fake SINs. i.e. your fake SIN carries an identity, a job, a place you live in, car license, everything. The players have a borad idea about what they fake SIN says and what they can do / say / carry with them.

Rating reflects the depth of the crossreferencing and dataplanting involved in making the SIN, not the actual level of access to security sites the SIN has. What is more, the more reliable the SIN is, the more commonplace the identity it carries. Fake SIN for army generals or ultrasecret researchers tend to and are checked and rechecked too regularly, needless to say they require access to highly dangerous databases to be manufactured in the first place.

This is why when the runners acquire / plant fake sins for a job, those tend to be temporary ones and most probably will become invalid after the run has taken place and security gets to check what had just hit them or, if unfortunate, at some time during the run itself.

The trend among the players in my groups is to have a good fake SIN for normal life and another, cheap one to go about doing legwork and generally while "working" but not during the "shooty" part of a run, then, they are SINless. The most paranoid runners have a couple more, preferably another good one which owns the retirement money account and an unused one that noone knows about ready in some locker with a pistol, some nuyen, a medkit and a one way ticket to another continent.

Cheers,

Max

[kzt]

[Cthulhudreams]

Wouldn;t they just arrest you for using a fake ID? that is actually a crime in lots of places.

[Draconis]

[Irian]

Don't forget: These are the inner Denver borders. It's ONE town, people still have to live and work there. Shadowtalk in the old Denver Box mentioned, that aprox. 30-40% of the people who live in one sector, work in another. So crossing a Denver border isn't that hard to do.
The only strange thing: In the old box it mentioned MADs, etc

In Shadowrun, many cops are corrupt. I would suggest a threshold of 1 for a quick test (a cops stops your car for routine control), etc.

[kigmatzomat]

MADs weren't too odd in Denver. IIRC, it had a train system that went through the city. If you assume that each of the stations had a MAD system to detect weapons and that people with weapon permits get in a second line, it works pretty well.

However there were sections of the text that did contradict themselves, IIRC, regarding the security levels and ease of border crossing. I think that was in part due to the multinational aspect of Denver.

I'd expect that most border crossings, being roads, are equipped with chem sniffers over MAD or cyber scanners units. Detecting explosives at range/speed is far easier than picking a weapon or piece of implanted tech. You'd route entire swaths of vehicles into the slow lane for a more leisurely pass through the sensor tunnel and pick out the real problem children.

MAD scanners might still be used to get a general correlation between manifest, weight, and cargo. For instance, a MAD scanner can tell the difference between 15 tons of steel and 10 tons of cocaine+5 tons of steel.

[Irian]

No, my problem isn't, that there were MADs, but the question, where they are NOW? :-) It seems to be too easy to get through the border with weapons - perhaps fake licenses are expected?

[kzt]

[MaxHunter]

...but the whole point of a fake sin is that people think it's real. Of course people would arrest you for trying to fly using a fake sin, but of course, for them to know it you have to fail your "fake sin" test before.

The point of an unused fake sin and the locker is this: the moment the drek hits the fan and the runner has to dissappear ASAP, can't trust anybody and the killers are on the way, he or she can flush his former fake SIN down the toilet, leave his former apartment and gear to the hit squad (in some cases activating the hidden bomb), pick up the new fake SIN not even his friends now about, use that two year old nanopaste container to change looks in the abandoned parking lot and immediately take a plane to another continent. I guess then it is get through customs or go to jail, but put in that situation either one would be an improvement.

Point taken that a SIN without any use in many months would strike as odd if anyone looked carefully. I suppose paranoid runners would worry about "updating" their failsafe fake SIN every once in a while. However, these paranoid runners I am talking about do pay an extra 10-50% for their chosen lifestyles which abstractly involves maintaining their stashes, some extra security measures and -now that you mention it- regularly updating their fake sin's. [yes, I guess that even if it never came up explicitly it would be included in the extra fee]

OT: One of these characters I really like is a Sioux ork who used to keep all his guns in the bathtub -which also meant he never had a proper bath- He loves guns and has made a point of salvaging "interesting" gear from the dead hands of well equipped antagonists. His collection has gotten so big now that he needs to pay extra nuyen for extra space and gang protection to stash his collection safely.

I don't know exactly but IIRC he has: two ruger superwarhawks, two predators, maybe a light pistol, a taser gun, a mossberg shotgun, a couple ak98s, a sniper rifle, a grapple gun, a grenade launcher, maybe 50 assorted grenades, a LMG, a Vindicator minigun and a recently acquired Panther assault cannon with half a cyberarm attached to it (don't ask)... and I am quite sure I am forgetting some. Most of this material was first used against the ork so I guess you can get a clear picture of the quality of his dermal plating.

... and before you mention it, the gang is a small time ork gang who are also armed to the teeth with more guns the ork has been getting for them, the temptation to steal his guns for themselves is minimal.

Cheers,

Max