Why does your Shadowrunner 'Run?, Honestly, it's not that great a job... Options

[CanRay]

I mean, no benefits, the job enviroment sucks, and the customers are pure scum (And that's not even including the Johnsons!).

Sure, the pay scale is great, but it's very illregular, and the expenses are attrocious!

Not to mention getting shot at.

So, why do it?

[Stahlseele]

FOR THE HORDE!
*ahem*
more or less, yes . .
because they did not learn anything else most of the time, because they have to hide some times . . for fun, for money, for ponies . . for friends and familiy, for personal reasons, because they believe that One Man Can Make A Difference . .

[Pendaric]

Because the alternatives are worse.

[Nightwalker450]

My technomancer currently runs because Renraku has good suspisions of his ability. So he abandoned his old identity and took to running, his goal to build a new identity, and eventually get back to a normal lifestyle.

I've also had a rigger that spent all of his off time (and during some runs as well) participating in street races. The (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) was all for upgrades, to his racing car to get him into the high-rollers league. This was before arsenal, so we were winging most of it. I need to recreate him now that I actually have upgrades for a vehicle. (I priced his primary car at over 300,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) when it was complete, probably more since some of it is "over-modification")

[Kerberos]

My runner runs because he needs to finance his agmentation addiction.

[DocTaotsu]

Doc T runs because it lets him "work out" his PTSD and feel like he's making a difference in the world.

That and betaware clinic don't buy themselves and a real hospital wouldn't let him use an AZ-120 to "calm down" a psychotic patient.

[Leofski]

Because once you're in its hard to get out, and its easy to be sucked in by the glamour when you grow up watching shadowrunner movies. How many people wanted to be a spy when they were younger because they thought it was like James Bond movies? Only with shadowrunning, the guys look to hire hire you tell you that the girls will love you, you will get in to the high stakes games and that theres no real danger.

J.D was already on the outside of the shadowrunning circuit looking in before crash 2.0, so in terms of work conditions and benefits it was a step up from his current position working as a gang level fixer and negotiator. When he "learned" to hack in the aftermath, he could start stepping up to real jobs. He'd been to young to get much work as a face, but people have fewer qualms about hackers and experience.

[CanRay]

Here's my own answer.

[Fuchs]

Because when you're owing money to the Mob, you do what you are told to work it off.

[Shiloh]

Because he was a petty criminal before the Crash and had seen working for The Man kill his father and mother in spite of all the shiny promises of security and care and jobs for life. Cynicsm drives him, and as a mage he's seen the cancer of background count eating away at Gaia; running the shadows offers more opportunity to stop that kind of thing than slaving for a wage does.

[Crusher Bob]

A picture explains is all. Do you like my hat? It's made of money!

[Ed_209a]

...Because he can't do anything else.

400BP characters don't grow on trees. They are highly trained, with extremely special abilities. I describe shadowrunners to new players as the Navy SEALs of the criminal world.

Shadowrunners stay shadowrunners because the can't or won't be hired by a corp or government agencies. I think every 400+ BP character who would be more of an asset than a liability will be courted by some corp or agency. That level of talent is just too rare not to. Something similar is happening today with special forces personnel being recruited by various companies, typically private security contractors.

This would be especially true of mages. You can spend 250k on implants, 250k on training, and make anybody a street sam. You can't buy a magic rating. Corp recruiters would overlook a LOT to get a new mage into the fold.

EDIT: To clarify, unless there are legal/personal reasons, corp/gov employment is VERY tempting. More pay overall for less risk. What's not to like?

[paws2sky]

Why run? It varies from character to character.

My Shark shaman was freakin' crazy (really, he was certifiable), couldn't deal with authority, etc. He didn't care to join a gang or a syndicate. He was half Sioux, so he ran into prejudice frequently (that was a big deal in the early 50's)... He just wasn't capable of functioning in normal society, holding a more conventional job. But he was a damn terrifying combat magician, a good summoner, and pretty good with his machete weapon focus too.

On the other hand, my decker started (pre-game) as a SINless ganger and worked his way up, picking up knowledge and eventually building his own deck and coding his own programs. He didn't have a SIN, didn't want one, and just enjoyed being a free spirit (something no corp could give him). Plus, he raked in fat cash doing shadowrunner shit. In that campaign he was one of the few non-corp deckers of any skill in Seattle. Since no one wanted to learn the SR1/2 Matrix rules, the GMs at the gaming club actually let me hop from group to group providing Matrix support for the different teams as long as there wasn't an in-game time conflict.

[kanislatrans]

Hugh,my mage , hit the shadows because he is looking for someone.

She's human, about 5' 7" tall and athletic. Auburn hair and flashing Green eyes. last seen wearing a red Pleather jump suit and holding a predator IV to a corp cops head. He thinks her street name is Muse. It was love at first sight.

So tell me, was he crazy to throw away a cushy corp career to chase an angel from the streets who probably doesn't even know he exists? Yeah, but in a world with so little happiness, even the glimmer of hope is enough to make people do crazy drek.

Keep lookin', Omae, Keep lookin'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[ArkonC]

As others said, reasons vary wildly...

My current character is running because she has led a very sheltered life and ran away from it, simple as that...

My last SR3 character ran because he was paranoid to the max, and not existing seemed the best way to not be found...
Screams "SHADOWS!" to me... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I have a streetsam (Mason) that I play occasionally, when I don't feel like being the face/doc, and he runs because no one else wants him, hell, the other members of the team don't really want him, he managed to turn his hobby into his job, namely, torture and murder for their own sake...
*BLAM!*
Team member: "Is he dead?"
Mason: "Not sure, lemme check..."
*BLAM! BLAM!*
Mason: "Yup, he's dead..."

[Janice]

My current character isn't a runner, he's an elf pit fighting adept, and he does it for the simple pleasure of being able to turn his fists on people and see just what kind of harm having a punch with the same damage and AP of a Ruger Super Warhawk can bring upon the next boob that steps into the ring.

Edit: A reason I could see for runners in general is the freedom such a job offers. You don't have to punch the clock at 9 and 5 and wear a suit all day, you don't have to pay taxes to the man, if you want to enjoy the simple pleasures of watching a monkey knife fight while wearing a speedo and slathering ice cream all over yourself, you're welcome to.

[Starmage21]

IRL, I am falling more and more into the beleif that its downright easy to get away with crime as long as you dont half-ass it. Too many people around me have not only have done things casually, but actually make a living off theft. In the last 10-15ish years of my life(the years after which I understood the repercussions of such work), none of those people have ever done time, nor talked about so much as a phone call from a detective.

Now imagine that someone with already questionable morals gets introduced to that kind of work, and certainly have the skills to make quite the successful career out of it. It pays decent, usually, but you really dont have much to worry about in terms of authority.

Hell, if I had the know-how to get away with the shit, I'd probobly do it myself.

[ElFenrir]

To make the long story short, Kaiser, my former company man, does it in a way of breaking out of his old corporate life. He's a martial artist that's probably killed more people-including shadowrunners, with his bare hands than he cares to think about; he's 25 years old, and his level of talent is indeed insane. He was trained since youth, used as a killer on command for his uncle from the ages of 18 to 23(as far as we are concerned, you probably start young), and while the beginning of his job felt like prestige and reward, he grew more and more disgusted with it.

He hated fighting these lower-end shadowrunners-the ones obviously doing it to eat, with poor gear, and they still fought him with everything they had, to the end, despite being outclassed. He was an honorable fighter at heart and felt like he was at an unfair advantage-there were ones, naturally, that were quite good too. He eventually met a couple of people willing to help break him out(if he wanted it). The final straw was when he killed three obviously underfed, outclassed runners, beating them to death, and seeing the final one-a small, thin, hacker girl whom this paydata would obviously buy her a way to eat and maybe a better place. Even looking at him with his gloves and boots covered in the blood of the others(she was more of a freelance hiree than longtime teammate), she was afraid but told him he didn't have to be there, since she saw the absolutely disgusted look on his face. He forcibly ejected her from an area with no guards, who were sweeping drones out of the rest of the place, and tossed her the commlink which he grabbed off her head. It was the first time he defied orders, and after that, he was gone about two months later by his own accord.

Now, all of that deadly corporate trained ability is available for the streets, and they aren't complaining. He takes a small pleasure, though, in busting open heads of those corporate monkeys that treat the runners like dirt and abuse them, trying to get his past off of him as if it were filth. He's got more friend now, and even a budding relationship with a magical scientist his age, so he's glad he made the decision to say the least, even though he still lacks some of the 'runner' skills like dealing with the streets and stealth, which he did't need as much. But he's learning.

[SprainOgre]

I'd imagine that for many a mage and adept, it's a chance to test your skills every day.

In general though I'd say for many it's freedom. Freedom from the soul crushing corporate grind of 50+ hour workweeks for table scraps or living in a gilded cage. It's being able to say "yes" or "no" to a job, because you want to. At least, ideally. Sometimes, you're just a sociopath with a lot of skills and abilities to earn an obscene amount of money doing things you have no possible objection to. I believe it goes "find your own truth" and that is probably the best answer of all.

[DeusExOneiro]

Prometheus runs because he's disgusted with the corporate life, he's pissed at his corp parents, and he's severely addicted to two very expensive street drugs (Psyche and Zen). And, while he's an incredibly smart and freakishly talented Chaos Mage, he's also 19 and dumb as hell. He sees Running as a grand adventure, and his nativity will one day turn him into a stain.

It's strange. I hear a lot about runners doing it because of the "freedom," but being SINless and "erratically paid" doesn't make the sky your limit. Someone else already mentioned that any Runner with a remote chance of fitting in at a corp would be bought out & brought in faster then they could scream "Freedom," Braveheart-style. (That to the tenth power for Mages.) I think that the majority of shadowunners are working either a) because they really CAN'T get any Up & Up job (meaning they did something really terrible), or b) they're insane/retarded/on a completely different trip than anyone around them; for whatever reason, they can't function (emotionally, psychologically, socially, etc) in the corporate, government, or "organized" sectors.

As to the "SINless and poor" thing, a fake SIN at Rating 6 costs $6k - not just pocket change, but not impossible. Granted, they're a bitch to actually get (availability 24), but that's just a matter of time. So, if you're SINless and poor, teh question becomes "why run more than once (or twice)?"

For the record, any character that would "fit in" at as corporate schmo wouldn't be as fun to play as the one who can't IMO.

[Speed Wraith]

Most of the players in my current group have characters that had been hung out to dry by their former employers. I suspect that is the case with the vast majority of runners out there. Many others, like my namesake for instance, became tired of the paperwork and bureaucracy and office politics to the point where no matter how many cool toys were thrown at them they just couldn't deal with it anymore. Freedom is freedom, even if it is a day-to-day existance with bullets constantly whizzing past your head.

[last_of_the_grea...]

Mostly because of that Flock of Seagulls song...

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

[CanRay]

Mostly because of that Flock of Seagulls song...

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

This one?

[last_of_the_grea...]

That's the one. of course I could also have been influenced by this song, Blinded By the Light Heh...reminds me of the good ol' Street Samurai Catalogue.

[Speed Wraith]

Mostly because of that Flock of Seagulls song...

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

What, not Pat Benatar? Every damned time I hear Shadows of the Night I think SR, just 'cause of the title (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)