Loot and its consequences, ie ... are runners getting too much Options

[baburabi]

I have a little problem in my campaign and was wondering if any of you out there are having it or have had it and figured out a way to fix it.

See, my group is tough enough I have to use cybered opponents, no big deal there right, the problem comes in, when they are looting the bodies, and selling off the body parts and cyberware. Now I don't have a problem with this too a point but it does get to be a bit too much money too easy.

For the most part, I try to kep the fights in locations where the runners do not have a chance to surgically loot with out running the risk of getting caught up in something they don't want, but what happens when they are able to just pack up the bodies and perform the surgery later.

I also try to keep the selling price of the ware to a minimum, 50% cost at most, normally about 25-33%, but also take into account possible damage to the ware based on what ever took them out, usually results in at least one system being unsaleable.

But even with all this taken into account, the team is averaging better than 20,000 nuyen in loot per runner per mission.

Any one else out with this problem, or a solution?

[eidolon]

First suggestion: Read and use the rules for Fencing Gear.

[Smilin_Jack]

What cyberware are you having to use to counter your players?

If its just adding 1 IP - try having your NPCs use either Jazz or Kamikaze instead, especially if they are supposed to be things like security guards or gangers and not emergency response units.

[Cain]

Second suggestion: Threaten to hit them with a few points of Notoriety. Don't actually do it, since the mechanics mean they might actually benefit, but the threat is usually sufficient.

[Fortune]

20,000 in loot per session doesn't seem overly excessive if you have a 'tough' group.

Maybe you should be throwing higher quantities of mooks at them, and less 'cyber monsters'. Numbers can be just as challenging (even more so sometimes) than a 'big boss'.

[Nkari]

Mabye you are giving out to little money for each run if they resort to a meat cleaver and saw on the ppl they just killed while doing the run.. Even worse.. they do it on ppl that they just just wounded..

[HappyDaze]

Here are a couple of things to consider after assuming that the group has no problems packing up and transporting bodies around:

1. They won't necessarily know who has cyber and who doesn't. That means they are either spending more time sorting bodies or they are packing even more bodies into a van or something. Increased supply of bodies drives the price down.

2. Some cyber is likely to get broken depending on how the opponent was killed, bu the tracking devices their corp bosses put into that cyber tends to survive intact.

3. Even knowing a body has cyber doesn't mean that they know exactly what it has in it. They may have a street doc pay for the wired reflexes and then pocket the Math SPU during surgery without telling them.

4. They will get less nuyen if the buyer has to extract the cyber themselves. Consider surgical costs and subtract that from the profits. If that sees silly on a dead body, remember that the doc could be spending that time working on a live patient and making more... If the players have their own cybersurgeon with the right tools, this might be less of a problem, but it creates problems in it's own right.

5. On the high end, give some of your baddies betaware - it's got 0 resale value.

I rarely found it reasonable to carry bodies as loot. We had a character loot a pair of cyberlegs from a guy once, but that was something he hastily removed with 'field surgery' - not something that is reasonable with a great many of the cyber toys.

[Wounded Ronin]

Just have their medical costs be hgh enough that it takes a big chunk out of the haul. See also rules for fencing loot. Occasionally have the buyers ambush them at the meet.

[noonesshowmonkey]

As several forum goers have already noted not all cyber is easily removed from a body. In fact, most cannot be easily removed at all. Most cyberwear is not so simple as a chunk of metal atached to a body but a series of smaller systems that hook it up with various bits of the neurological system, control systems etc. Most cyber that can be ripped out will be ripped out partially complete, possibly damaging the cyberware in the process of removal.

So even if it is detected and successfully removed, without proper facilities it is HIGHLY unlikely that the part will come away undamaged.

A street-doc character in a game I was in used to have a van with a vehicle mounted cyberware scanner and some vats of acid to remove fleshy bits from the ware. This is probably one of the few ways that serious profit could be made from cyber - a trained medical (street) professional with facilities.

As Wounded Ronin pointed out, add more RP to the process of selling gear. Generally if it totals to more than a few thousand nuyen, I make the players RP the whole deal. When its RP, theres a much higher chance of people catching a bullet.

- der menkey

"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~ Ernest Hemingway

[Buster]

I played a mage that used Turn To Goo on opponents, then Levitated the cyberware into Durazip baggies. The 5 grand Mr. Johnson was paying on runs was chicken feed compared to the money I was making on selling my enemies for scrap.

[noonesshowmonkey]

[Whipstitch]

You could say that about virtually any shadow profession.

[Lagomorph]

I think most of the ideas you'll need have been presented already, but I'd add that unless one of them is playing a cyber doc, they really won't have an idea about most cyberwear except the obvious arm leg eye and ear, and those are cheap, especially used, so you really wouldn't be able to sell them for much at all.

[DTFarstar]

Yeah, I currently have a chick with first aid, medicine and homeopathic training for the party, and turn to goo for the opposition in case we need some cash, or need to dispose of a body down a sewer grate or what have you. You can store bodies in some creepy places when they are goo.

Chris

[Wit]

Body robbing is something I used to... heck, still do, as a player, and as a GM I've learned the best way to deal with it is not to try to nerf it or nix it, but to have fun with it. Notoriety, a bad rep, and upgunned mooks are good counters, but here is my favorite method. Have them get caught with the body parts. Surgically removing cyberware on a run is just plain unrealistic. More likely is that they'll just hack off the part or even take the whole body ("Hey, my STR 10 troll can carry anything"). Well, put them in a situation where they're caught red-handed with the parts. Random Lone Star check points are a fast and dirty way for it. Just include enough firepower that fighting seems like a losing proposition. For more fun, make it a non-violent discovery (by the Johnson, a runner's significant other, random orphans, etc.). These are often hilarious because they involve more roleplaying than dice rolling ("Well, you see, there's a perfectly good explaination for us to have a ditty bag full of 3 arms, 4 legs, and a disembodied head...")

Oh, and a note to GMs when dealing with body-robbers. One typically doesn't see this with well-off runners, but when the nuyen runs dry, watchout!

Be sure to specify! "Bring the mark back alive" includes redundant and nonvital organs.

[baburabi]

[WearzManySkins]

To me it sounds like your players feel they are not earning enough nuyen on the runs, so they have found a way to supplement it.

Remember a medium lifestyle costs 5,000 nuyen a month, if one or more of your players have a high lifestyle that is 10,000 nuyen a month.

How much are they getting per month in nuyen from the johnson/fixer etc? And how many runs per month?

WMS

[baburabi]

well so far they have done two runs this month, each has payed 5000 a pc, plus about another 2000 a pc of gear and other misc loot that doesn't involve ripping it out of a dead body, so i'm not so sure its about the money per say, i just think they got it in their heads to get as much as they can.

just checked my email, i got two of the players complaining about it actually, so it is basically just the "street doc" and the mercenary who seems to have this attitude, the fifth member of the team so far has remained neutral.

in fact one of the players is having his character post something on the matrix about what they did, and see how many jobs they will get hired for in the future?
so that will go a long way in karma coming back to get them.

[NightRain]

[WearzManySkins]

Posting about it on the Matrix will only hurt the entire teams chances of getting work. That may polarize the party more, ones that take cyberware, one that squeals about it, and those that get a rep by association and get no work.

Remember there are more than one organization involved in organ legging/cyberware recovery. Like the Yaks, you operate in their territory they WANT their PERCENTAGE and have ways making sure they get it. I am not saying the Yakuza are in this, but several underworld organizations are. Also operating in such an organization's turf with out prior permission usually involves a large monetary penalty along with some physical memory adjustments, ie they get the snot beat out of them.

Nothing like having lots of underworld types come busting in, when the team is in down time mode. :D

Also such organizations may wish to "Regulate" such things in their area of control, and the teams efforts may have exceeded the regulated limit. Then they are basically told to quite in a manner which leaves no room for misinterpretation. :)

WMS

[FriendoftheDork]

I thankfully haven't had much problems with this with my group, although I almost expected so, because we used to play D&D.

The reason? High pay. When you're getting 20-30k per person for a run picking up all those Ares Predators worth 350 nuyen (which means it sells at about 100 :y: ) isn't going to matter much. So far they've only looted enemies when they have the time, and those have only been punks and muggers anyway that doesen't have much more than a few pistols or AKs and meta links with bad or no programs.

So far they haven't "harvested" anyone yet, but they can as they have a contact at a shady barrens street clinic. Ah well, it's not going to bother me, and if they start looting exessively they will get caught or get messed with by the Yakuza or mafia. Of course, in the short run that's only going to give them more loot, but when they start losing contacts or even have fixers and Johnsons going silent on them, they'll take the hit and make some kind of arangement.

[CircuitBoyBlue]

The last campaign I was in, we started out selling our opponents for scrap, just because we all started dirt poor (campaign stipulation). We had a street doc in the group, but not a good one. And our early enemies weren't very cybered, anyway. We basically had to sell 'em by the pound for ghoul chow. It was such an ugly prospect that we didn't need any GM intervention to dump the practice as soon as we could. If we could eat without spending a couple hours a night playing with a chainsaw in the bathtub, we were all for it!

[Mercer]

Organlegging is in a lot of ways "free money". If the group takes someone out, and there is a nuyen value on the corpse, that can be hard to pass up. Particularly if that nuyen values is four times what they're making on the run.

If the group is making 20k per person per run just on cyber they pull out of dead bodies, and they're selling it for 25-33% of the worth, that's about 300k worth of cyberware they're running across. That's not out-of-line, but it is a lot of gear to expect them to pass up.

I'm not entirely sure why anyone would look down on them for that. If anything, I think the rep might help them since razroboys would be less likely to go against them knowing that these people are going to put them through a woodchipper and sell anything that comes out the other side.

I'm of the opinion that if you use something against the pc's, if you put something "in play" its fair game. If the pcs can figure out how to end up with it, then thats the reward for being tough, clever or lucky. If you think they're making too much money taking gear off or out of their opponents, use less gear. More schmoes, cheaper gear, combat drugs, buff spells and so on.

If the pcs wonder why all the sudden everybody they fight isn't worth 13 cents a pound, you can tell them its because street samurai are scared to come fight them.

[raggedhalo]

Or...

The cybergoons' sponsor (corporate or syndicate) notices when said goons don't report in. They then trace the RFID tags in the cyberware.

They either find the team with a van full of bodies, they find the street doc they've sold it to, or (later) they find the recipients of the cyberware. They torture and interrogate their way back to the source, and hey presto -- revenge time!

[Mercer]

You could say that about any piece of stolen gear. The problem isn't that they were stealing cyberware, its that they were bad at it.

I imaging a conversation similar to this:

"Honorable Oyabun, our group of assassins have not come back."
"Eh, win some, lose some."
"We think that group of shadowrunners we sent them to kill killed them."
"C'est le vie."
"We think they incinerated their bodies, and are now driving around in their car, using their guns, spending their pocket money, and making prank phone calls to their widows."
"Cost of doing business. Circle of life."
"Also, they may have taken the Wired Reflexes out of one guy."
"What?!? I have literally never been more offended at anything I have ever heard in my entire life. That is the most uncouth thing I have come across in my 37 years as a yakuza oyabun, and I regularly cook and eat babies."
"What should we do?"
"Let's get some guys together with even more valuable cyberware, and send them after this same group. I mean, what could go wrong there?"
"Well, thats why you get the big money, sir."

Cyberware is a commodity. Someone is going to end up with it. To say that the shadowrunners shouldn't take it because its immoral seems to gloss over the fact that shadowrunners are rarely bankers or clergymen. If a particular group decides not to touch cyber-reselling because it offends them, that's fine, the same way some groups won't take wetwork or do unwilling extractions. But to say that no group would try to resell cyberware or would be immediately looked down upon and doomed for doing so seems-- given the fluff of the game-- a bit naive.