Corporate Script, Is it worth it? Options

[Neruda's Ghost]

Just wanted to know if GMs use this at all to pay their players with. I know most players are hesitant to accept corp script just on principle and possible data trails, but are there advantages to the script as opposed to certified creds? Is is cheaper, for example, to buy weaponry from Ares using its own script? Are scripts completely worthless outside the corresponding corporation or is there a form of exchange that can be used (either between corps or directly into nuyen)?

I was also wondering if the corporate script represents the evolution of our present day credit/debit cards? Maybe VISA reincarnates after the Crash :)

[BitBasher]

BTW: it's scrip. There is no T in it, it is not script. Generally speaking scrip can only be spend in stores owned by that corp. It's not transferrable and spendable everywhere.

By that token it's no more traceable that nuyen, for that matter all nuyen, including certified credsticks are traceable, and it's much easier to do so than paper cash.

No, something should not be cheaper spending corp scrip on it.

The real reason corp scrip exists is so that in corporate enclaves its employess are forced to spend their cash in corp stores and cannot shop and spend money easily elsewhere. It's for the benefit of the corp.

In my games a lot of players flat out refuse runs paid in corp scrip.

[Ancient History]

That said, there is a secondary market for corp scrip. Since each scrip is backed by a megacorp, it's a fairly stable currency (though Fuchi scrip is likely toilet paper now) for secondary trade: you can bribe corp employees with it, or walk into stores for coporate employees that have discounts on that corp's products and buy stuff with it.

[/edit] There are shadow-markets that exchange corporate scrip for nuyen.

[fctarbox3]

Although items won't be cheaper using Scrip rather than Nuyen, companies are likely to pay you more if you accept payment in scrip, since they're reasonably assured that all the funds are going to come straight back to them... being the only people who'll accept it.

[BitBasher]

[Ancient History]

Completely relative. Check out in the old Corp book. Some non-corp businesses readily accept corporate scrip, and corporate scrip can be worth mroe or less than nuyen. Commission, of course, will be larger when trading scrip.

[/edit]
Example: You're offered a choice of payment for a job: 50K nuyen or 60K in Aztechnology corporate scrip. You check the local exchange rate and see AZT scrip is trading at 1.83 nuyen, with a 10% commission.

Bonus round: does the effect of your run influence the value of the scrip on the market, or would it be more pennywise to brave the trip to an AZT corporate store to spend it?

[CanvasBack]

It seems like I read somewhere that most corps only accept corp scrip from people with corp I.D., i.e., one of their own employees. They're using it to foster even more control over their employees, not play monetary games. The whole point behind nuyen and the corporate court was that financial transactions would be streamlined, simplified and stable with a (practically) universal form of exchange. But then, maybe my imagination is simply playing tricks on me... :dead:

[RedmondLarry]

In my games, I have the small shops near a megacorp accept corp scrip for bagels, lattes, newspaper, and so on. Even though the corp frowns on that practice, it's worth it for the small shops to make the sales, even though it costs them to redeem the scrip through the black market. It would be hard for a shadowrun team to spend 60,000 in these small shops, so they have to find their own black market connection.

I play that the end of the line in the black market chain is a store manager inside the corp who can fudge his in-company store records, and does so for personal profit.

I choose to make the adventure the challenge in my campaign, not the money handling. Therefore, in my campaign I allow certified cred to be easily transferred on and off of certified credsticks, and to ignore Canon guidelines about tracability of certified cred. This is simply my choice on what kind of campaign I want to run. When I want to make an issue of money handling part of an adventure, it'll be with some technique other than the tracability of certified cred. I do not make players keep track of how many credsticks they have and how much money is on each.

[Limping Jacob]

Corp scrip is essentially nothing more than gift certificates good for that corp's products (if you can cobble a legit enough fake identity to actually shop online, or in that corp's stores, that is).

However, I could see it being used to buy things other than lattes and other bric-a-brac. Why not buy an Ares machine gun with Ares scrip? Of course, the usual licensing/legality issues and whatnot would apply.

[Crusher Bob]

The simplest way to think abount it is as a big pile of gift certificates. Killing your fellow man for 10K in honey Banked Ham gift certificates is usually not the thing to do.

[Steel Machine]

In my own game the death of hard currency has yet to happen. I'm not alone, the Wolf and Raven stories confirm that I'm not the only person who sees a need for large amounts of currency to trade hands with out leaving an electronic data trail.

I have a hard time seeing electronic currency gaining affluence, especially given how dodgy the Matrix is even in 206x. Regardless, it makes our game simpler in some respects (My players and I don't always have to deal with credsticks if we don't want to) and much more dangerous in others. (Hard currency brings all it time tested problems, and many a player has fallen victim to fraudulent payments in the past.)

[simonw2000]

[Steel Machine]

Off hand I'd say there isn't one. I know there is reference to its exsistance in both Corporate Shadowfiles and the CD, but I have never seen one officially published.

Which makes it even funnier for a GM to use Scrip, because you control the exchange rates.

[simonw2000]

:vegm:

[Moonstone Spider]

Carrying this thought too far could produce some bizarre runs. Of course that's my specialization so. . .
Johnson: "I don't have any Nuyen but I can give you 40,000 coupons good for 1 nuyen off any purchase at any Stuffer Shack."

[simonw2000]

:rotfl: on that thought!

[Jpwoo]

I would have to say that as a Johnson paying with scrip either doesn't make any sense, or makes a whole world of sense.

Paying runners in a rival corps scrip might throw the runners and anyone else off as to who hired them.

I heard on the radio about a town, I think in new york state, that has an alternate currency called the man-hour. It is redeemable for one hours worth of work from someone. Dentists and landscapers and all kinds of businesses in the town use Manhours like real currency. Off topic but I thought it was pretty cool.

[Xirces]

[Kagetenshi]

Wow... deja vu... wasn't there a thread like this a few months ago with an almost identical title, even down to the misspelling of scrip?

~J

[BitBasher]

At least we're consistent :D

[Neruda's Ghost]

If there was such a post the search engine didn't catch either spelling and I missed that posting, a link to that thread might be nice.

Thanks for the replies, folks. Like SteelMachine, I also favor a mix of currency in my games (it adds to social and economic distinctions) and so I sometimes try to introduce scrip into my games. As most have posted here, my shadowrunners generally wouldn't sully their hands with any corp scrip, but I was hoping that someone could come up with an advantage to using it.

I was thinking that maybe an exchange rate between scrip an other hard currencies such as the UCAS or CAS dollars could be used as a way to either launder money or to go through non-Matrix channels (like others mentioned.) I was thinking specifically of underworld finances with ties to corporations and vice versa. Is this possible, or am I still missing something?

[simonw2000]

Here's a trick for all you Johnsons who want to save money. Hire the runners as normal, and offer them payment in script. The trick is that the script will be that of the target corp! The runners won't notice until it's too late.

[Herald of Verjig...]

I doubt the scrip would be sufficiently devalued immediately after the run to save money that way.

Messing with different currencies whose relative worth fluctuates takes a bit more consideration.

In target-corp scrip, the currency will be decreasing in value as a result of the run. Chances are, the runners will want money immediately, meaning the Johnson can't wait for the scrip to fully devalue before purchasing it and giving it to the runners. This leads to money being lost between when the Johnson pays the cash and when the runners get to use it.

:nuyen: is a favored currency because it is extremely stable. A competant Johnson would try to find payment methods that cost less to him than their worth to the runners. One example is gear, before the wholesale and retail markups, the costs of most gear are greatly below the price in the book. This way, the corp can spend 300 :nuyen: to make a gun that retails close to 900 :nuyen: and categorize them as 900 :nuyen: each as part of the payment.

[BitBasher]

Actually according to the rules in corporate shadowfiles its really virtually impossible to ever impact a corp's fincial figures in any way via shadowrunning.

[Herald of Verjig...]

Megacorp at least. A subsidary may suffer.