[X] My Assistant

[Nath]

We did not contact Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson contacted us. Therefore we are not there to kill Mr. Johnson, but we are aware of the possibility that Mr. Johnson is there to have us killed. Lots of people want to have us killed. If you're looking for amateurs, Mr. Johnson, then yes, please walk, and find someone else.

It's supply and demand. Runners has the skills. Johnson has the money. Fixer has the runners. Johnson needs the skills and deniability. Fixers and Runners need the money. I believe there ought to be a lot more runners on the market than job opportunities.

If a deal goes badly, Johnson can probably find another skilled team within a few days. The runners may have to wait a few weeks before getting another shot. That is, if they ever get another shot. Your fixer is not going to wait you piss off every Johnson in town, hurting his reputation and preventing him from gaining money. He'll blacklist you. If he doesn't already have several other team available, don't worry about him, he'll find. While Johnson probably don't talk a lot to each other, fixers do. Quickly enough, everybody in town (plus a few people out of town) is going to know about that team of runners that can't get a deal done because they always want to know whom they are working for.

[Makki]

I think it's a matter of setting style whether Pheromones will be acceptable at a Johnson meet; if they are, Johnson is probably using them too, and he's steering the conversation so he's making opposed checks against all the team members, not just the Face.

On the other hand, if Johnson isn't using Pheromones himself, he probably doesn't want the PCs to use them on him, so if he notices them, he might announce that negotiations will have to continue over a secure phone link instead.

This is why I don't really like Pheromones; they constrict your options as much as they give power. It's an illegal, aggressive item that you can't help but reveal to those with the (fairly available) means to detect them.

In general, bioware is only lightly restricted, and hard to spot. Neither of those is true for Pheromones - they're embarrassing, and that's not good for a Face.

He can use a breather, right?

[suoq]

I really don't get this belligerent attitude towards Johnsons. It's like you're crying Foul if you can't easily abuse him. Consider his perspective:

You need people to do a Job. You need to trust these people enough to know that they'll do the Job for money, and keep quiet about it.

Now, when you meet with the people recommended to you, they try to manipulate you with illegal pheromones, adept powers, mind control spells, emotitoys, and they try to hack your commlink.

How would you feel about employing them?

Ok. Mr. Johnson goes onto the next team. They don't have illegal pheromones, adept powers, mind control spells, or the ability to hack his commlink.

Why is he even considering employing them?

If I need to employ criminals, spies, assassins, hackers, etc. the first thing I do, personally, is understand that I'm employing criminals, spies, assassins, hackers, etc. I'm not expecting to do business with nice, friendly, non-intimidating people. Even if they're Danny Trejo nice on the inside, I have to expect that they're Danny Trejo threatening on the outside because that's what they have to be.

I, personally, am belligerent towards Johnsons because Johnsons are the enemy I do business with. He is not my friend. He is not one of my contacts. He's the suit, the man, the power. But our team has what he wants and he has what we want and if we're lucky we'll get out of this alive and paid.

Some people here play at tables where Mr. Johnson can be trusted and expects to be treated well because the team is either desperate, stupid, or afraid, or maybe there's some sort of house rule that says Mr. Johnson will never screw you. That's fine for your table. Personally, I view Mr. Johnson as a threat. In just meeting with us in person he now potentially knows more about us that I'm comfortable with and may have any possible ambush set up for us should we be the people he's looking for.

[Ascalaphus]

@suoq:
I didn't say the party should be incapable of illegal practices, just that Johnson doesn't want them used on him.


Johnson wants deniable assets, because the Job requires there's no trail back to him. Otherwise he'd use company men, who are usually much more reliable and trustworthy.

Now, if you pry into his identity, you stop being deniable. You're no longer an asset, you're a liability. He needs to get rid of you, because you're a threat to him.


Sure, sometimes not knowing who Johnson is will be dangerous, but knowing will always be dangerous, because it gives him a motive to kill you.

[suoq]

Johnson wants deniable assets, because the Job requires there's no trail back to him.

And so he physically steps into the room thereby creating a trail, many trails, back to him.

The people who do not want a trail back to them are not in the room. I'll draw from Ronin, since that seems to be the Shadowrun movie of choice. The person the team meets with, who knows the plan, arranges for money, arranges for weaponry, etc. is Deirdre. She is, for all intents and purposes, Ms. Johnson. She's in this one neck deep. There is a person in the movie that none of this is supposed to be traced back to. The person who requires that there's minimal trail back to him is Seamus O'Rourke. The only trail there should be back to him is Deirdre.

Now we understand that, as the behind the scenes character, Seamus O'Rourke fails. His failure is the core of the movie. On the other hand, a character in a similar role does not fail, the fixxer. The fixxer is referred to in the movie "A fellow that doesn't walk so well." aka "The man in the wheelchair" aka "The Man from Bristol". We never see him because, unlike Seamus, he doesn't screw up.

Sam tests everyone in the movie. He tests Gregor. He ambushes Spence. He repeatedly tries to get information out of Deirdre such as what's in the case and who does she take orders from. By the logic in the claim that the runners shouldn't use their tools against each other or Mr. Johnson, Sam is a horrible runner. He shouldn't test Spence (and therefore let that idiot get them all killed). He shouldn't test Gregor (and therefore know less about him than he needs later to track him down). He shouldn't question Deirdre (even though his job is to find her boss IF her boss is Seamus). Note that while I don't see him test Vincent or Larry, Vincent delivers the cars and computers and Larry can clearly drive, so perhaps he didn't need to.

[Nath]

A runner that is a CIA agent under cover whose only objective is to get his real employer arrested or killed, is indeed a horrible runner. IMO. As a Johnson, I wouldn't want to work with him.

[Ascalaphus]

Ronin is a fantastic SR movie, but as I recall, just about everything goes horribly wrong for everyone, so it's not really a good primer on Best Practices.

It makes me wonder though, about the whole "meeting Mr. Johnson" thing. I mean, it's a convention of the genre, but all in all it's often a very bad idea.

You could take a step back, and ponder from Johnson's perspective; "how do I discuss business with these people in a way most advantageous to me?" Do you really want to meet with maniacs who keep cleaning their swords during the meeting, try to hack your commlink, watch your aura and so forth?

Oh, there could be reasons...
* Communication face-to-face is generally far better than any other way. People understand each other much better that way; purely written or telephonic communication misses a lot of the cues that bring across a point fully. This can be important when laying out a complicated or delicate mission.
* Physical goods: makes it easy to hand over a MacGuffin or a credstick.
* Get a good first-hand look at the runners; in order to assess their apparent competence and trustworthiness, or just because you want to assense their auras for later..
* To spread misinformation, by for example carrying identifying stuff from another corporation, or to fake body language to make it seem like you're scared or naive.

But unless Johnson has some sort of good reason to meet in the flesh, why should he?

[suoq]

Ascalaphus: I may be misunderstanding you, but there seems to be assumption in your post that Mr. Johnson is the client. I don't believe that to be true in all case. In some genres that might be true. Examples might be the nice clients on Burn Notice, Leverage, A-Team or (if you're old) Stingray. In those examples the end clients meet directly with the team and it's probably best that the team be more trusting, simply because that's the genre.

However, I believe that when the client does not want to deal with the team directly, it is in their best interest to hire an agent to handle their affairs. The agent is known, by tradition, as Mr. Johnson. Mr Johnson's job is to oversee the request while keeping the client out of the loop. He launders the money, provides deniability, and is paid to take the risks the client does not wish to take themselves. This is a much more paranoid world than the genres in the above examples.

How Mr. Johnson protects himself and his clients is something that is, quite possibly, unique to each Mr. Johnson. However, protecting tjemselves and their client is their business and that's what they're being paid for. It may be that, over time, certain Johnsons develop a "relationship" with the team, contacting them through appropriate or possibly even inappropriate channels. (Although if a Johnson's daughter EVER calls me again because her daddy is in trouble, I'm selling her to the lowest bidder in the Barrens.)

----------

Nath: That's OK. You can work with Spence instead. Then after everyone gets capped in the tunnel and you're out the money, you can go to The Man in the Wheelchair and ask for a new team that has even less time to do the job.
Edit: Gregor doesn't go on the guns trip, so he'll still be there to betray team number 2 with an exploding case.

[Ascalaphus]

Johnson is rarely the client itself, but he does know (more about) who the client is, and he needs to keep that information secret. So when the runners try to use Pheromones, hacking or magic to gather information about him, he should consider that an attempt by the runners to gain that confidential information.

He wants to deal with people who are okay with not knowing too much about him. If the runners are unwilling on that point, he's best served by walking away.

(I'm working under the assumption that not getting the target of the run is better than being exposed and facing CC retribution. Better to walk away than to have it go wrong.)



Johnson is looking for runners whose only concerns about him are:
1) Is he good for the money?
2) Will he pay?

Johnsons require a credit rating just like runners; Johnsons who plan to do their job more than once have an interest in preserving their reputation. If all is well, the runner's fixer can vouch that the Johnson has been good for the money in the past, and that the runners are capable and reliable.

Contrary to a lot of fiction, most of the time Johnson doesn't want to screw you over, he just wants results for an acceptable price. If Johnsons tried to screw over teams all the time, the "system" would collapse. A Johnson who screws teams gets a bad reputation with the fixers and has trouble finding good teams in the future.



There's a final good reason not to want to know Johnson's identity: if you know it, you're part of the trail that whoever you run against will try to follow. If you don't know anything, and don't have anything because you delivered the prototype to Johnson already, you're not particularly worthwhile to go after. It can be healthy to advertise the fact that you don't have any information worth beating out of you.

[suoq]

Note that personally, I have no desire to know anything about the client while wanting to know too much about the target, but that's just me. However, I do expext the Johnson to negoitiate if he's trying to pocket a little on the side (he may be, he may not be). I also expect him to withold target information because the posession of such information may tell something about the client. Because of these factors, negotiations can become part of the game. Mr. Jonson has reasons to withhold from us the things we want. He is notnour friend.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Note that personally, I have no desire to know anything about the client while wanting to know too much about the target, but that's just me. However, I do expext the Johnson to negoitiate if he's trying to pocket a little on the side (he may be, he may not be). I also expect him to withold target information because the posession of such information may tell something about the client. Because of these factors, negotiations can become part of the game. Mr. Jonson has reasons to withhold from us the things we want. He is notnour friend.

Possibly, but witholding that information is likely to result in a failure of the mission. Failure is generally not the intent of the meet. Negotiations are always part of the game. But it tends to be in the compensation realm rather than in witholding the information needed to complete the mission.

[Ascalaphus]

I don't expect Mr. Johnson to be my friend, but I do expect him to be a reasonable businessman. He wants the mission to succeed, so I expect him to hand over all information he has that will make it easier. If he has to censor parts of it to protect his identity, too bad, but random withholding just to be annoying I don't expect.

He can try to misrepresent the run; "it'll be easy", but I think that's amateurish; it reduces our chance of success, because we'd underestimate things. And he should want us to succeed.

---

I expect a lot of negotiation about what exactly is a "fair" price for the Job. He'll want to keep it low, we'll want it high. Maybe we can find some other item, information or service he can obtain that's more valuable to us than to him, and thus make a good deal for both of us. The exact result depends on the Face.

We would like payment up front, as much as possible. He would prefer to pay everything upon completion of the Job. If our reputation is good, we might get some up front. If he doesn't have any reputation, we won't settle without a percentage up front. Maybe the Fixer holds on to the payment until the Job is done, if neither side can trust the other. The exact result depends on the Face.

We need a good after-mission protocol: how to we hand over the MacGuffin, how does he pay us? How do we ensure neither side shafts the other? Which ground feels safe and neutral? Again, the Face has to strike a deal for us here.

[Mäx]

If he has these kind of resources, he didn't need to hire them in the first place.

The fact that a standart corpore Johnson is hiring a team of deniable assets has absolutely nothing to do with him lagging in resources and everything to do with him needing a team of deniable assets.
Also it's not really hard to kill a bunch of retarded amateur runners with a surprise attack from a couple of goons.

[Rubic]

Possibly, but witholding that information is likely to result in a failure of the mission. Failure is generally not the intent of the meet. Negotiations are always part of the game. But it tends to be in the compensation realm rather than in witholding the information needed to complete the mission.

Not every mission is on the up and up, either. In 2068-2070, and even to some extent beyond, Technomancers were at risk of being sent on tail-chaser missions designed to out them to the corp and capture them. Regular runners run into similar at times, when some corp or exec wants revenge and has the spare budget money. Spiders hire runners to test their security set ups and troubleshoot problems. If the Johnson is leading you into a trap, then it's in your best interest to know it. If the Johnson lied about what you were REALLY doing (poisoning a drink for a hate crime rather than simple corporate sabotage as per fluff), and placing YOU at greater risk than what he's paying you for, well, that's just not cool. It's in each person's best interest to get the most out of a meet as possible, whether it's money, insurance for later, blackmail material, or idiots who were too stupid and polite to check your commlink and find out how poorly you're underpaying them for the risks they'll be facing and any investigations likely to follow.

Mr. Johnson follows the rule of Jack Sparrow, in that you can always trust a dishonest man to betray you, and the lion's share of meets are going to be between criminals of one sort and criminals of another sort. Are you gonna be too scared to pick up some notoriety to avenge your fallen teammates? Besides, if you hack his commlink or assense his aura, who's to say you'll get accurate information? An experienced Johnson may show up disguised as a man on a ventilator (bye bye pheremones), false information on his mid-grade commlink (he was hoping you'd hack it), begging for your help when he only has a small amount of money, a few herlooms (from a second-hand store, with new/no RFID tags in them), and his personal gratitude. Run goes off with out a hitch, the Johnson gets what he asked for, the team gets the payment they agreed to, and the runners and target are none the wiiser.

Alternatively, that last scenario I described could EASILY be responsible for the runners picking up a VERY nice contract the next week from the same Johnson (they don't recognize) negotiating over the matrix, for a big corp who knows now how competent these runners are.

[Glyph]

Again, tailored pheromones are not a big deal. They fall into the category of things such as glamour, empathy software, or kinesics - things that give you a bit of an edge in negotiations. Not every side will have every such advantage, but both sides will use it if they've got it. If I went to a meet and the Johnson had one of those dice pool boosters, I would not consider it an attack, or mind control (although both sides would use things such as nose filters or areas with background counts to their advantage, too). Likewise, I would assume assensing on the part of any awakened character.

Some skullduggery is more frowned upon, but still usually not a deal-breaker. The runners know that the Johnson will try to keep tabs on him, and the Johnson knows that the runners will both double-check his information, and try to find out whatever they can about him. the Johnson may not like it when the hacker tries to hack his commlink (even though it will most likely be a generic commlink with no sensitive information). The face may not like it when the Johnson's hacker sabotages his emotitoy, or when they find an RFID tag on the certified credstick they were paid with. But it likely won't make either party walk away from the deal (if they catch the other party red-handed at it, they will be in a stronger negotiating position, of course).

Only things like mental manipulations, mind probing, blackmail, commanding voice, or threats of violence will end the negotiations. And likely start hostilities.

It depends on the campaign. The SR1 archetypes, which had a vignette of the character speaking first, made you think that runners threatening Johnsons was a fairly common thing.

"Better make it a good offer. Your face is startin' to look more and more like a basketball."

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Not every mission is on the up and up, either. In 2068-2070, and even to some extent beyond, Technomancers were at risk of being sent on tail-chaser missions designed to out them to the corp and capture them. Regular runners run into similar at times, when some corp or exec wants revenge and has the spare budget money. Spiders hire runners to test their security set ups and troubleshoot problems. If the Johnson is leading you into a trap, then it's in your best interest to know it. If the Johnson lied about what you were REALLY doing (poisoning a drink for a hate crime rather than simple corporate sabotage as per fluff), and placing YOU at greater risk than what he's paying you for, well, that's just not cool. It's in each person's best interest to get the most out of a meet as possible, whether it's money, insurance for later, blackmail material, or idiots who were too stupid and polite to check your commlink and find out how poorly you're underpaying them for the risks they'll be facing and any investigations likely to follow.

Mr. Johnson follows the rule of Jack Sparrow, in that you can always trust a dishonest man to betray you, and the lion's share of meets are going to be between criminals of one sort and criminals of another sort. Are you gonna be too scared to pick up some notoriety to avenge your fallen teammates? Besides, if you hack his commlink or assense his aura, who's to say you'll get accurate information? An experienced Johnson may show up disguised as a man on a ventilator (bye bye pheremones), false information on his mid-grade commlink (he was hoping you'd hack it), begging for your help when he only has a small amount of money, a few herlooms (from a second-hand store, with new/no RFID tags in them), and his personal gratitude. Run goes off with out a hitch, the Johnson gets what he asked for, the team gets the payment they agreed to, and the runners and target are none the wiiser.

Alternatively, that last scenario I described could EASILY be responsible for the runners picking up a VERY nice contract the next week from the same Johnson (they don't recognize) negotiating over the matrix, for a big corp who knows now how competent these runners are.

No Arguments there Rubic... I understand all that. But to assume that it is the norm, that you are going to be continuously screwed over, is somewhat ludicrous. Yes, you will get this from time to time, but it if it is every run, well, something is not right. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Rubic]

No Arguments there Rubic... I understand all that. But to assume that it is the norm, that you are going to be continuously screwed over, is somewhat ludicrous. Yes, you will get this from time to time, but it if it is every run, well, something is not right. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

If things were right, then Runners would be out of a job.

[LostProxy]

And if that keeps up Corps would be out of runners. There may always be someone desperate enough but that in no way means there would always be someone skilled enough. To needlessly throw away assets like that when it's against the Corps best interest is irresponsible at best.

[Rubic]

In the 2070's there's a ton of unfortunates being pressed in the meat grinder of corporate and street cultures. People on the low end trying to work their way up, people outside the system trying to get in, and people on the inside trying to get out. There's also the multitude that gets caught in the crossfire. So long as there are people who want more than they have, there will be somebody to exploit that desire. Runners are a dime a dozen. Mr. Johnson's only slightly less so. The fixers and the corps are the parties most interested in keeping the status quo, hushing up the small stuff and eliminating the big stuff. A Johnson screws over too many runners? The fixers and runners won't deal with him, making him worthless to his corp. Runners causing problems? Fixers and Johnson's will blacklist them. But if a runner catches the Johnson in a screw over, they don't just go running to a Fixer crying that Johnny wasn't playing nice. If they're lucky they'll get their runner card revoked and sent packing to one of the nearby corp havens to apply for a job changing diapers.

Now, if a runner manages to hack a Johnson's commlink and they make him, that's some leverage in the runner's favor, so long as the Johnson doesn't catch on to this tidbit. Then again, if the runners hack the Johnson's commlink and find it says he's working for Horizon when he claimed Evo, and the 'link has an Ares shell and SK guts, they know the guy came prepped, probably from MCT or some upstart who knows a good rep to negotiate with.

tl;dr, paranoia is healthy, blackmail is normal if not expected, and rule zero (don't get caught) always applies to all parties. If your Johnson is faithful and clear, and doesn't do more than haggle a bit so he can afford a new suit after the run is over, then the hacking was extraneous, but insurance never hurt anybody until they were caught (back to rule zero).

[LostProxy]

But that doesn't answer my main argument. That there won't always be someone skilled enough. Shadowrunners by sheer mechanics and perhaps by fluff are a cut above the rest. Your average Joe is probably throwing maybe 9 dice for a perception test. A decent runner 12+. That correlates that in world they are just better at stuff. How long do you think it takes to get that kind of training and experience? Every runner was someone else's investment and those investments take time.

It's not a matter of there not being desperate enough people, I already said there always would be, but a matter of people with the ability to do the job. Especially the higher end ones.

[Rubic]

But that doesn't answer my main argument. That there won't always be someone skilled enough. Shadowrunners by sheer mechanics and perhaps by fluff are a cut above the rest. Your average Joe is probably throwing maybe 9 dice for a perception test. A decent runner 12+. That correlates that in world they are just better at stuff. How long do you think it takes to get that kind of training and experience? Every runner was someone else's investment and those investments take time.

It's not a matter of there not being desperate enough people, I already said there always would be, but a matter of people with the ability to do the job. Especially the higher end ones.

the high end is just as likely to be like the low end as it is to be people who are figuratively at each other's throats putting up a nice front, buying each other hundred dollar meals at executive functions while ignoring the elephant in the shadows. Prime runners aren't necessarily made of a predetermined figure so much as surviving what I tend to dub "Darwin Checks." It's not about being the fittest, per se, so much as being fit enough to pass whatever challenge you come up against. This could be through skill, armaments, contacts, or resources with the fundamental rule being to stack the odds in your favor. Survive an arbitrary number of Darwin Checks to the point where people in the world start talking about what you've done, and you'll find you're considered Prime, even if you didn't evolve much from the 400 BP protozoan you started as. If stacking the odds means hacking a 'link and then keeping closed lips, so be it. Just because you got the info doesn't mean you have to apply it or out the Johnson. It just means you can hold the little turd accountable IF he tries to double-cross you.

Remember, nobody needs to know that you actually know anything. Not knowing can be very lucrative and increase survival. The key point is that a Johnson is as much a criminal as the runners. Treat him the way you'd treat any other criminal on the opposite side of the table.

[Ascalaphus]

I think that a 400BP runner is already above-average. Normal desperate people fit into the 300BP slot.

Consider Attributes: rating 3 is defined as average, and you can't spend more than 50% of your BP on Attributes. For 300 -> 150BP, you get an average rating in them of 2.875 - subnormal! 400 -> 200BP on the other hand gets you 3.5s on average, which is clearly superior to normal people.

So these people aren't in fact in abundant supply, they're unusually good.

---

The point also is that the whole shadowrunner-Johnson market will only function if in the majority cases, the Job really is the Job and not some setup. You can't camouflage a screwover as a normal Job is normal jobs are not the majority, because the presumption will be that you're setting them up.

Compare it to selling drugs: if 70% of all cocaine on the market was actually powdered sugar, nobody would believe they're being sold the real stuff, not without extensive testing (which defeats the point of the scam).

Likewise, the majority of all Jobs need to be the real thing if the shadowrunner market is to function.

[Glyph]

I agree that Johnsons will usually not screw over the runners. And runners will usually not blackmail the Johnson. But it only needs to happen once, thus the typical precautions and paranoia on both sides.

[suoq]

In the contest between Shadowrunners and everyone else, I think it's a mistake to think everyone else doesn't have the BPs that shadowrunners do.

Some have more, some have less, most have spent a good portion of their BPs on non-shadowrunning skills.

Somewhere out there there's a cook (Artistan 6 specialized in Orc Cuisine) who has ware over his torso, arms, etc, that allows hot grease to spash on him and he can keep on cooking. It'll do as armor in a pinch. He knows how to do things with a knife that your specialized street sam couldn't do without burning edge. His cybereyes contain IR thermometers accurate to a 10th of a degree so he knows exactly how hot every surface is. His left hand has a brulee torch wired and his control rig runs the kitchen. And while he's in that kitchen he has Home Ground advantage out the wazoo.

Sure, find him on the street and he's road pizza to your crew. But if you even think about using his kitchen as an exit strategy and you didn't recon this, you're going to find your way in Plan B really quickly.

Sure, you'll still turn him into road pizza when it's over, but he isn't some 300 point loser. He's just not a shadowrunner.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

In the 2070's there's a ton of unfortunates being pressed in the meat grinder of corporate and street cultures. People on the low end trying to work their way up, people outside the system trying to get in, and people on the inside trying to get out. There's also the multitude that gets caught in the crossfire. So long as there are people who want more than they have, there will be somebody to exploit that desire. Runners are a dime a dozen. Mr. Johnson's only slightly less so. The fixers and the corps are the parties most interested in keeping the status quo, hushing up the small stuff and eliminating the big stuff. A Johnson screws over too many runners? The fixers and runners won't deal with him, making him worthless to his corp. Runners causing problems? Fixers and Johnson's will blacklist them. But if a runner catches the Johnson in a screw over, they don't just go running to a Fixer crying that Johnny wasn't playing nice. If they're lucky they'll get their runner card revoked and sent packing to one of the nearby corp havens to apply for a job changing diapers.

Now, if a runner manages to hack a Johnson's commlink and they make him, that's some leverage in the runner's favor, so long as the Johnson doesn't catch on to this tidbit. Then again, if the runners hack the Johnson's commlink and find it says he's working for Horizon when he claimed Evo, and the 'link has an Ares shell and SK guts, they know the guy came prepped, probably from MCT or some upstart who knows a good rep to negotiate with.

tl;dr, paranoia is healthy, blackmail is normal if not expected, and rule zero (don't get caught) always applies to all parties. If your Johnson is faithful and clear, and doesn't do more than haggle a bit so he can afford a new suit after the run is over, then the hacking was extraneous, but insurance never hurt anybody until they were caught (back to rule zero).

Exceptional Runners, However, are NOT a Dime a Dozen. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif) A Johnson would likely be out of a Job if he constantly tried to screw over the Quality Help that he NEEDS to do the job. Most times, the Dregs just are not going to cut it and he is going to need a team that is GOOD at what they do.

Yes, there will be a lot of Dregs out there. That just means that the Johnson has to treat the Quality Help a bit better, to keep them happy and not looking for his blood.