Shadowrunners and Mercenaries, What's the difference? Options

[Grayson7]

Hello, I am new to gming Shadowrun 4th edition. There is something that I have always wondered about. I am hoping the someone with more experience can explain it to me. What is the difference between a shadowrunner and a mercenary? Don't they both do things that are good or bad (depending on your perspective) for money? What distinguishes one from the other? Thank you.

[last_of_the_grea...]

Well, technically a shadowrunner is a specialized type of mercenary.

[RunnerPaul]

What is the difference between a shadowrunner and a mercenary?

In the end, it comes down to deniability.

When someone goes out to hire a mercenary or a company of mercenaries, they don't go out of their way to hide the fact most of the time. How many times have you heard about Blackwater in the news over the past year?

When a shadowrunner or a team of shadowrunners is hired, silence is the rule of thumb. Difficult-to-trace methods of hiring and payment are used, and often times, the party doing the hiring goes to great lengths to hide their organizational affiliation from the very runners that are being hired.

[Daier Mune]

also, i would think Mercenaries would be more what you'd look for if dealing with large-scale open warfare.

[MYST1C]

What is the difference between a shadowrunner and a mercenary?

My view has always been this (fits with the SR2 book Fields of Fire):
A mercenary is primarily or completely a soldier for hire. His main line of work - combat and guard duties - isn't (usually) illegal.
A shadowrunner on the other hand is a criminal for hire. His main line of work - breaking-and-entering, theft, sabotage, abduction, espionage, maybe even murder - is definitely illegal.

Depending on the applicable laws in his home country a mercenary can be a SINner and pursue his job openly - what's wrong about a professional freelance soldier working for respectable employers?
(A mercenary can moonlight as a runner, though.)

[Cthulhudreams]

Combat Inc does operations with Ares co-branding in a perfectly legal and above board fashion.

Shadowrunners... don't really do any of that.

Basically.

[IQ Zero]

The spelling?

Seriously, I can't really see a difference other than semantics.

[Synner667]

Fictional material shows mercs in a rather black and white way.

From stories that involve Mercs, the main difference seems to be criminality and some sort of code-of-conduct and being a professional soldier...
...Professional mercs seem to work to guidelines about behaviour.

One of the original archetypes for the Cyberpunk genre is the Street Samurai, generally considered to be a Ronin [masterless Samurai] and often a code-of-conduct merc working on his own.

Mercs can be hired for most occasions [bodyguarding, small scale warfare, largescale warfare, surgical strike, etc], but seem to be used mainly for situations where you want a trained, disciplined, competent professional.

The term Shadowrunner covers a lot of types of people...
...And some of those are mercs - but since Shadowruns can be quasi/semi-legal, some of those 'Runs can involve mercs on a shadowrun.


Wonderfully overlapping !!

[Grayson7]

Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to reply. I appreciate the input.

[masterofm]

As a shadowrunner you shoot people in the face for money, and as a merc the big difference is you shoot people in the face for money... although when you shoot someone in the face for money you don't get thrown in jail for doing it.

Shadowrunners are pretty much black ops type of people. Your skills and knowledges are top notch, and you generally can do more then shoot someone in the face. Shadowrunners are basically special operatives who operate in settings that are highly dangerous and are given much less legal protection then a merc ever is. Although this can mean that you can make thousands of (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) every week, or day, or whatever you GM decides. For our group we have bagged about 2 mill per person (most of it in ware) in a month and a half.... of course we have been gaming for quite a long time (our GM is afraid of giving the rigger, demo expert, or mage any downtime as it would make them pretty insane.)

Some mercs might not be all that different from Shadowrunners, but the difference is the job security. As a merc you get some, as a shadowrunner you are like James Bond. You might get all the hawt ladies and a larger budget, but if your caught no one will come running to aid you.

[Chance359]

While the terms are interchangable, mercenaries have one major thing going for them over shadowrunners: professionalism. As a Johnson, you expect professional soldiers to behave a certain way, but shadowrunners are a mixed bag.

[Dr Funfrock]

While the terms are interchangable, mercenaries have one major thing going for them over shadowrunners: professionalism. As a Johnson, you expect professional soldiers to behave a certain way, but shadowrunners are a mixed bag.

I'd argue that it's the other way round.

Mercenaries tend to be hired for large scale operations. They're a "bulk purchase" kind of deal, since most come by the company. Look into real world Mercenary groups like Executive Operations. Shadowrunners are small elite teams for specialised work. Precise and effective, but not so great for capturing small nations.

[Wesley Street]

The only difference between a professional mercenary and a shadowrunner is that the former is hired primarily for military-style operations. Both can work deniable or illegal jobs. All it depends on is who's paying the bill. Shadowrunners are all mercenaries in the broader sense of the word.

[WhiteWolf]

A group of Shadowrunners tend to be a group of people, professional and non-professional, that may not have trained extensively together and is usually hired for a cheap amount; pay is also based on the reputation of the Shadowrunners. One way to think of Shadowrunners is like a group of business men today. Some of them will be well trained (and continue to education themselves), some will have above average training (and continue to educate themselves), and then some will barely meet the requirements (and most likely will not continue to educate themselves unless necessary).

A group of Mercenaries are people who have prior military experience and train extensively with one another to know the others weakness and strengths. Mercenaries also have more skills then a group of Shadowrunner for the Merc will have combat skills and skills specific to his job/training and skills to back-up another team member. When you hire a mercenary team to you reserve the team as a whole and you will pay well for reserving the team, pay is also based on reputation but will always be more then a Shadowrunners pay.

Summary: Both groups earn their income and if they are not working for someone then neither group is being paid. Mercenaries train and work as a team and are considered professionals; when you hire a Mercenary you hire the team. Shadowrunners are pulled together to handle a specific job and then break up and while they maybe really good at what they do they are not considered professionals; when you hire Shadowrunners you are not guaranteed to always have the same people on a team.

Corporate Mercenaries are a different story, but basically they fall in between these two groups. Average to above average skills for a Shadowrunner team, but always below average skills of a Mercenary team.

I hope this helps you. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[masterofm]

If you are a 400 bp character you are better then a merc. Mercs might be combat trained with some other specialties, but a 400 bp character has much more then a merc could hope for. Now a 300-350 char could be merc'ish. 400 bp characters always stood out to me as specialists.

[Wounded Ronin]

A friend told me that Field of Fire supposedly had a dissection of the issue of shadowrunner versus mercenary.

[Roadspike]

A friend told me that Field of Fire supposedly had a dissection of the issue of shadowrunner versus mercenary.

Would this friend be the late, great Matador?

While Fields of Fire is a wonderful book, and it does indeed have a great discussion of the difference between a Shadowrunner and a Mercenary, it is a rather biased view from a mercenary's perspective. Honestly, you could probably find/replace every reference to "Mercenary" with "Street Samurai" (in that section at least, not the whole bit about typical missions and the like) and have a nice diatribe from a Sammy on why they're more honorable than most Shadowrunners.

To actually contribute something to the discussion (not much, but at least it's something) I'd say that in my opinion the difference is, as MYST1C said earlier, that a mercenary is a soldier you hire through legal, quasi-legal, or illegal methods, while a Shadowrunner is a criminal you hire through quasi-legal or illegal methods (I suppose some could be hired through legal methods, but they woul dbe the vast minority). Mercenaries are expected to do military work, Shadowrunners are expected to do a wide variety of jobs, some of which could be considered military work.

As I've been writing this I realized that it sort of sounds like Mercenaries could even be considered a subset of Shadowrunners, which I don't know that I agree with, so I'll have to come up with another differentiation. Let's go with--uh--mercenaries use assault rifles, Shadowrunners use submachine guns... yeah... that'll work (yes, that's a joke). How about, they're different beasts with overlapping jobs. Sure.

[Kliko]

depends on what end of the violence spectrum your team is operating...

[3278]

A mercenary is primarily or completely a soldier for hire. His main line of work - combat and guard duties - isn't (usually) illegal.
A shadowrunner on the other hand is a criminal for hire. His main line of work - breaking-and-entering, theft, sabotage, abduction, espionage, maybe even murder - is definitely illegal.

Inasmuch as there can be a "correct" answer to a semantic question, this response is correct, at least from SR1 through SR3. I could not reasonably answer the question for SR4.

[Fuchs]

My take on that question: Shadowrunners are mercenaries who do criminal jobs as well as legal ones. If you're not doing any illegal work, you're not a shadowrunner.

[Rad]

Versatility.

Mercenaries shoot things. Or guard things. Or a little of both.

And that's it.

Shadowrunners do whatever the frag you need. Maybe that's shooting, or maybe it's sneaking into an R&D lab to drop a stink bomb in your buddy's locker. (Better not tell 'em what they're delivering though, 'runners don't always have a sense of humor about these things.)

Bottom line is that with a merc you get a soldier, with a 'runner you get a professional scapegoat for whatever dirty deeds you want done. Don't let the street sam fool you, not everything is accomplished by shooting.

[VagabondStar]

Shadowrunners and Mercenaries are essentially the same thing, the differences are cosmetic:

Shadowrunners are slick, cool, and urban.

Mercenaries are basically soldiers.

Mercenaries may have more conventional missions as well (assault this, blow that up, etc. etc.)

[Fortune]

Pretty much all shadowrunners are mercenaries, but not all mercenaries are shadowrunners. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Chance359]

The difference: Rainbow
Sprinkles

[Irian]

I personally think the distinction between "soldier for hire" and "criminal for hire" is the best way to describe it, but of course, it's no strict separation: There are surely mercenaries, that do criminal jobs and runners will sometimes perhaps also work in classical "mercenary" jobs.

If you are a 400 bp character you are better then a merc. Mercs might be combat trained with some other specialties, but a 400 bp character has much more then a merc could hope for. Now a 300-350 char could be merc'ish. 400 bp characters always stood out to me as specialists.

To be honest, I don't think that 300 points are enough to build a soldier, sorry. Even 350 points may be not enough. A mercenary will have many skills on 1-2, 2-3 groups at 2-4, not to mention physical attributes at 4 (at least slighty better than "normal" people). Many soldiers will also use cheap cyberware to improve their skills... Imho, 400 BP makes a good starting soldier. Not a hard veteran, but someone who has worked in this buiz for a year or two.