Where do your groups runs come from? Options

[Yerameyahu]

My point is precisely that you shouldn't be FastJack… and I'm not sure he could do all the things you're suggesting anyway. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Exactly, Tanegar. To assume that things just stay around is extremely… cinematic.

[Emperor Tippy]

Just because someone calls you a terrorist doesn't make it true. You and your friends are choosing to play monsters; not just ordinary monsters, either, but monsters on the level of the nineteen men who murdered three thousand people one autumn morning not that long ago. If you're having fun with that, then by all means carry on, but don't delude yourselves into thinking that the game is "forcing" you to play that way or that it is the only option.

Whether you kill 30 or 3,000 doesn't change the fact that you are a terrorist.

Runners are terrorists, by practically any definition or standard you care to name. To think differently IC or OOC is to delude yourself.

Those dozen Corp guards you killed on that run last week? Pretty much every runner is a multiple murder in short order, within a year in game your character probably has a direct, personal, kill count measured in the hundreds and if you include the indirect costs of your actions, a kill count in the thousands. That run you made to fuck with that corps soda so they blew the launch, you probably cost a dozen or more family men their jobs because of that.

No, they don't. They really, really don't. You talk a lot about realism and what security would realistically do. Any IT security guy worth his paycheck is going to check the legitimacy of any newly created account, especially a security or admin account. He's going to call up the person whose name is on the account and say, "Hey, Bob? Did you create a new admin account last night? No? OK, thanks." Then he's going to delete the account, close the backdoor used to create it, and go through the whole system with a micrometer-toothed comb to find what you changed or broke. Backdoors and hacked accounts are good for a limited time; if the security team are doing their jobs, a severely limited time.

Until you go and add in the memo to IT from the companies manager about why the admin account needs to be there. Or until the character get's a copy of the OS and reworks it to bury a little hidden admin account in there who's activities self wipe from the log and doesn't show up.

By RAW a legitimate account (which you can create once you have an admin account) hangs around indefinitely. So do the regular accounts and the security accounts that you made at the same time and are also fully legit.

---
Oh, a trick if you want to really screw a node over. Have a technomancer do an Erase Data RRS on the targets Analyze program. Or accounts. Or a specific account. Or the Agents of company X. It's a pity you can't time an RRS well by RAW, but it can be so very useful. Especially if you have a hacker on life support sitting in VR for the instant that the RRS delivers. Have a R12 or so Courier Sprite under Stealth sitting in the node waiting to come and let you know when all the IC (or all the Spiders) get booted off as their accounts/programs no longer exist.

[Emperor Tippy]

My point is precisely that you shouldn't be FastJack… and I'm not sure he could do all the things you're suggesting anyway. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Exactly, Tanegar. To assume that things just stay around is extremely… cinematic.

Rating 7 Legendary
The “best of the best.” Someone whose expertise outranks all others in all of known history. Can only be achieved with the Aptitude Quality (p. 90).
Athletics Example: Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, Joe Montana, Pele, Babe Ruth.
Firearms Example: “Wild Bill” Hickock, James Bond, Thunder Tyee.
Technical Example: Thomas Edison, Nicholai Tesla, FastJack.
Social Example: Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Damien Knight.
Vehicle Example: The Red Baron, Evil Knievel.
Knowledge Skill Example (Academic): Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein.
Knowledge Skill Example (Street): Wolfgang Kies, Dr. Raven, Captain Chaos.

Throw in Genetic Optimization (Logic) and Exceptional Attribute (Logic) for a pre-augmentation Logic of 8.
Add on Cerebral Boosters 3 for Logic 11.
Then you have PuSHeD for +1 to Logic linked skills, Encephalon 2 for +2, and Neocortical Nanites 3 for +3.
At that point you are at least as good as FastJack, where he wins is that he has been doing the same thing you are doing now for the past 40 years and got into these systems when they were first being set up so he could bury his backdoors and accounts very deep far easier and has a large collection of contacts with most of the other decent hackers on the planet.

Now add on a few million in hardware and throw in significant help from a Resonance 14 Technomancer. When I say our hacker is one of the two best in the world, that's because he is.

I've made no bones about it, everyone on our team is incredibly skilled and is competing for best in the world in their chosen field. They started as standard gen 400 BP characters 13 years ago in game and they have been running that entire time. They have enough karma that our hacker is a better shot than most starting street sams and no one on the team has anything less than delta grade ware in their body, with everything that can be bioware being bioware. When you are saying "Could I see them doing that?" don't think of regular runners, think of FastJack, Damien Knight, and the other legends of the SR world. We didn't start powerful and we didn't get powerful quickly, easily, or cheaply but that's where we are now; and the threats we face are commiserate with our abilities.

[Yerameyahu]

Commensurate. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I agree, I'm just saying that you're no longer playing the game that most people recognize as SR. You *shouldn't* be FastJack, but I'm not saying you guys aren't. When D&D players literally become deities… it's just not the same game anymore.

[kzt]

No, they don't. They really, really don't. You talk a lot about realism and what security would realistically do. Any IT security guy worth his paycheck is going to check the legitimacy of any newly created account, especially a security or admin account. He's going to call up the person whose name is on the account and say, "Hey, Bob? Did you create a new admin account last night? No? OK, thanks." Then he's going to delete the account, close the backdoor used to create it, and go through the whole system with a micrometer-toothed comb to find what you changed or broke. Backdoors and hacked accounts are good for a limited time; if the security team are doing their jobs, a severely limited time.

Yup. We find and kill compromised systems all the time. Literally, at least one a week. And it is normally found by systems that automatically examine all the traffic going to and from our hosts to the internet and flag "interesting stuff", plus the log data from the important systems, which gets looked at by other systems for different "interesting stuff".

[Emperor Tippy]

Commensurate. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I agree, I'm just saying that you're no longer playing the game that most people recognize as SR. You *shouldn't* be FastJack, but I'm not saying you guys aren't. When D&D players literally become deities… it's just not the same game anymore.

Ah but D&D becomes unplayable over level 20, hell it's difficult to play well over level 12 or so, unless you are houseruling out the ass entirely new mechanics.

That isn't the case in SR, it's perfectly playable. If our hacker+technomancer tried to go at a high end facilities nodes code they might get through without raising all kinds of alarms and they would be breaking through chains of nodes a dozen deep and all filled with cutting edge IC running cutting edge programs and operating in cutting edge nexi. Those dozen nodes semi randomly alter their connection when someone isn't moving through them and if you get the pattern wrong and end up in the wrong node, well there is no way forward and when the node you needed to enter find's itself unable to continue the chain it is supposed to, it sends back an alert and the hardwire connection to the next node in the chain gets pulled. Our mage would find himself facing 20+ Force 10 or so spirits and a few magic 6+ initiated mages and be in deep shit. Etc.

We are good, there are very few things that are outright beyond our ability, but we can still be wiped out because of one single mistake made at the wrong time. One fuck up and we're screwed still. Just like way back when as 400 BP 0 Karma runners, actually we are even worse off now than we were then in regards to fuck ups screwing us; there was a lot more leeway back then. Now there is pretty much one possible path through a run and that run needs to be timed down to the second and is even then only possible after blowing upwards of a million nuyen (or more in some cases) on consumables (and Eagle-C's can and have become consumable objects. Stupid Aztlan Blood Mage who wouldn't die when he was supposed to.).

[Yerameyahu]

Yes, it's not an exact analogy. Again, I'm not saying there's no game, that you're doing it wrong, that you're not having fun, etc. When I said you shouldn't be FastJack, I only meant in terms of 'playing a normal SR game'.

I think it's pretty clear that it's a whole *different* thing, that's all. So when you ask where people's runs come from, etc., you're not going to have much common ground. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Emperor Tippy]

Yes, it's not an exact analogy. Again, I'm not saying there's no game, that you're doing it wrong, that you're not having fun, etc. When I said you shouldn't be FastJack, I only meant in terms of 'playing a normal SR game'.

I think it's pretty clear that it's a whole *different* thing, that's all. So when you ask where people's runs come from, etc., you're not going to have much common ground. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

The where peoples runs come from bit still applies. Almost all of our games the runners were the primary source of their runs. Johnsons and fixers provided more of the runs in street level games but they still would have been lucky to make up 50% of our runs.

[Tanegar]

Until you go and add in the memo to IT from the companies manager about why the admin account needs to be there. Or until the character get's a copy of the OS and reworks it to bury a little hidden admin account in there who's activities self wipe from the log and doesn't show up.

By RAW a legitimate account (which you can create once you have an admin account) hangs around indefinitely. So do the regular accounts and the security accounts that you made at the same time and are also fully legit.

Until the security guy follows up on that memo (it's his job to be paranoid, remember), and the manager tells him he never sent it. Boom, account deleted. Install an OS patch remotely? OS patches in a secure installation are installed only from physical media and only with the prior knowledge of the IT guys; hell, the IT guys are the ones who handle the installation. And if you do manage to get past that, someone will notice the system rebooting, and you're back at square one. Accounts created by an account known to have been hacked? Deleted. Instantly and without question.

Bottom line: I can only assume that your GM is enforcing RAW when it is advantageous for you, and Rule of Cool/Rule of Fun at all other times.

[Yerameyahu]

You can play the what-if/and-then game forever, but at least that means there's an ongoing fight. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I dunno if anything in SR should ever be permanent, secure, or safe.

[Emperor Tippy]

Unwired page 98. Unless a legitimate account is being used for unauthorized or illegal activities, it won't be deleted. Hidden Accounts won't be deleted unless the systems spiders or IC see you using it, or have reason to believe that you are doing so.

Create a legitimate account for an Agent from, say, the marketing department of the corp of your target or the like to, say, get copies of all SIN's and their purchase histories forwarded along for analysis and exploitation. There it does exactly that and forwards the results onto the low level meta human peon who is in-charge of reviewing that info and deciding what to do with it. Hey, what do you know that low level peon is a R6 Fake SIN that does nothing but forward the data on to your nexus. Want to request the records of a specific SIN? Well then your low level R6 Fake SIN peon from legal tells his helper agent to go and request the data and deliver it and then passes it on. What, neither of those people exist? The records all say that they do.

The Spider looking at that node sees fully legitimate activity occurring and nothing untoward happening. Those accounts are just to let one agent from another department retrieve files for it's metahuman master who is an utterly unremarkable peon doing his low pay.

You have to put effort into creating real long term and constant access to a large number of databases, corporations, and matrix sights but it pays off spectacularly well in the end if you do so.

With hacks of GridGuide, the major MSP's, the bus lines, the trains, and the cab companies you can track virtually any SINer (or person with a Fake SIN if you know what it is) in real time and down to a few square meters in the sprawl. With the voting records office, the tax service, the power company, the major food delivery companies, and the water company you can find their exact address with ease. With access to the LS or KE surveillance network you can get real time picture on them as well pretty much everywhere except the Barrens.

Get every make and model of SIN reader on the market and run fake SIN's through them, tracing the route they use to check if the SIN is real or not. That Ares model R1 SIN reader might only be calling into a single Ares database to check for legality, what do you know, hack that database and you can make it so your SIN's always check out against that model of SIN reader. That R6 model SIN reader is running your different parts of your ID against hundreds (or thousands) of separate databases with everything from the local Ares clothing store at the mall to weapons world to city hall and it notices things like "You left Weapons World at the mall at 11:59 and then entered Stuffer Shack #345 on the other side of the sprawl at 12:01" and throws up errors; faking that R6 SIN is insanely difficult not because most of the individual databases are that hard to hack into but because there are hundreds or thousands of them and you need to carefully match all of the data so that you never (over a potential history of years) occur in two places at once or the like.

[Midas]

I agree with everyone saying that backdoors don't last for ever. As kzt confirmed from his IRL job, megacorps in the 2070's will regularly audit their servers and delete any accounts that they cannot trace to a legitimate corp user.

As for the R6 fake SIN paper employee, I mean really? That sort of amateur night shit would be detected and stomped on in no time at all. I think I have already lost all respect for your GM as anything other than a yes-man facilitator.

Don't get me wrong, you guys seem to be having fun so all power to you, but as Yerameyahu said for most of us that dog don't hunt.

[Emperor Tippy]

I agree with everyone saying that backdoors don't last for ever. As kzt confirmed from his IRL job, megacorps in the 2070's will regularly audit their servers and delete any accounts that they cannot trace to a legitimate corp user.

Regular audits, per the rules, won't do it. KZT also isn't up against the varsity.

As for the R6 fake SIN paper employee, I mean really? That sort of amateur night shit would be detected and stomped on in no time at all. I think I have already lost all respect for your GM as anything other than a yes-man facilitator.

*snort* you really don't get how big these corps and organizations are do you? Any of the AAA's has hundreds of millions of employees, most of them nameless, faceless, drones that are spread across hundreds of subsidiaries and divisions. These are companies that make more in a quarter than the US budget in 2011. The dude auditing the node that stores, say, the SIN's that have entered a Weapons World store sees that this agent that is nominally registered to Ares PR/Marketing is grabbing data that it legitimately needs to do it's job and is delivering it to some little accountant peon over in Marketing analysis who is working from home out of the low level corp housing project in the Seattle Sprawl. That guys boss sees that he delivers decent reports, if unimaginative, on time (in reality he is an agent with a few data and knowsofts) and that he is pretty much a completely average corp drone. Payroll sees that this guy takes his pay and spends it at the corp store to live his low level peon lifestyle. Low level housing project #17-D sees that "Yep, John Happy lives in apartment 3D and never causes a disturbance."

Now the spider doing the account audit looks at the account that some little agent from legal is using to occasionally grab specific records and is delivering them to low level legal peon #22347 who's job is to do "random" quality assurance and legal checks. See above for the rest. The spider looks and says "Yep, everything looks legit." and continues on with life.

And that's him going above and beyond in his job. In reality he would look at see "Yep, that's an Ares agent grabbing a file that it is authorized to have and it's delivering it to another Ares node, everything's kosher.". The spider on the legal departments node will look and go "Yep, that file was sent off to Joe Happy's comlink and he sent back his report; just like he has done every day for the past 6 months."

Don't get me wrong, you guys seem to be having fun so all power to you, but as Yerameyahu said for most of us that dog don't hunt.

*shrug*
So most of you want your characters to die early? Don't have a character that wants to change the world and through sheer grit, luck, determination, and skill is managing to do it? Again, we are at the point we are now because of 13 years of running against UV or near UV facilities every few months. In character we have, legitimately, reached the point where our characters would be legends if we weren't known under hundreds of different aliases that get burned through like candy. We have done something like 52 runs against high end systems. We have also undertaken hundreds of lower level runs.

It's not "Oh yeah, we started out two months ago and pulled all this off and are the most bad-ass legends around." its "We started off 3 years ago OOC and play 6-8 hours a week (plus what's done over e-mail) and IC have survived running for 13 years with our GM not pulling any punches."

You seem to be of the opinion that the GM should arbitrarily force conflict or for the players to fail by, essentially, act of god and not just play the world straight and let the chips fall where they may. You aren't saying "Oh you overlooked this giant glaring flaw in your security arrangement's and you can be found in 10 minutes.", you are saying "Despite going to truly extreme measures to protect yourself and prevent yourself from being traced, you have been. How? Because I said so.". On the Matrix nothing about us concerning this run exists because our Technomancer went and did an Erase Data RRS, and the only way around that is possibly with another Technomancer which requires that you already know what you are trying to find out. Magically we left no material or sympathetic link and no one has enough information to target a symbolic link. Physically we left no evidence.

Please provide some argument for how you want our GM to have a mega (or anyone else) legitimately track us down from the run. And an explanation for why that would be a good thing story or game wise? The plot already moves along just fine, the players and GM are having fun, we already face unexpected challenges all the time, our runs aren't remotely easy by any stretch of the imagination.

[Manunancy]

I'm wondering what sort of changes your character are willing to make in the world. As far as I can tell they're a bunch of amoral paranoid workaholics with a complete absence of social life - Managing a dozen or more separate companies on their own. doing months of planning recon, planting of backdoors and whatnot for high end runs along as doinf the sameas a matter of principle. And and let's not forget putting serious hours at the gym, range and the like to keep their shadowruning skills at top level... They probably have a stim budget big enough to keep a pharmeceutical company happy and yet will find themselves short of time. And probably fairly screwed up by the workload andstres level.

What kind of world are they looking after ? A neatlly ordered ant farm with them as the queen ants overseeing every little detail of everyone's life in a properly obedient and ordered fashion ?

[Emperor Tippy]

I'm wondering what sort of changes your character are willing to make in the world. As far as I can tell they're a bunch of amoral paranoid workaholics with a complete absence of social life - Managing a dozen or more separate companies on their own. doing months of planning recon, planting of backdoors and whatnot for high end runs along as doinf the sameas a matter of principle. And and let's not forget putting serious hours at the gym, range and the like to keep their shadowruning skills at top level... They probably have a stim budget big enough to keep a pharmeceutical company happy and yet will find themselves short of time. And probably fairly screwed up by the workload andstres level.

Some of it's true, but the characters are driven and they love the challenge. They do social stuff but it's hard for them to relate to most people, their lives and daily stresses are significantly at odds with those of virtually everyone else in the world. And the people that could relate couldn't be trusted. For most of our characters taking a day to walk around the gardens and lay out tanning by the side of the pool is what they do to relax. Our hacker finds it fun and relaxing to hack systems, at least when there is no real risk. Our face finds it relaxing to be able to simply be himself and not have to worry about who he is at the moment. Etc.

What kind of world are they looking after ? A neatlly ordered ant farm with them as the queen ants overseeing every little detail of everyone's life in a properly obedient and ordered fashion ?

No, they don't really care about the world. They simply want to be on top to prove that they really are the best, that they aren't just the runners who inconvenienced an AAA or even brought it down but the runners who brought down an AAA and managed to create their own. To prove that they are playing in the same league as people like Damien Knight. Our mage, who is the one that mostly initially conceived of the plan IC came from the SINless streets of the Barrens and had a *very* bad childhood; her motivation is to never be weak again, to have the security and assurance that she can't be ended or forced back into that life. Rationally she knows that she's already there but emotionally, viscerally, she won't feel safe until she has an AAA with a permanent seat on the Corporate Court following her will and at her command. The technomancer (the mages significant other) wants to visit the stars and lead mankind to the greater galaxy, to do that he needs the resources of an AAA mega. Our hacker is simply in it for the challenge, to prove to himself that he is just that good beyond any shadow of a doubt.

SR is a dystopia and neither the characters or the players want to change that. Wage slave; meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

[thorya]

What I don't like is the 'look at how genius and badass me and my pals are for pulling out over-the-top-crap' feeling I get from the posts, when it seems the GM is had basically turned on the god mode for them.

I agree, I get the same vibe, but you're not going to convince someone that's playing out a teenage power fantasy that no one's impressed by what his characters can do or that there might be some internal inconsistencies or flaws. Part of the power fantasy is believing that the game translates into some tangible self-worth (kidding, I'm sure Tippy's a perfectly nice guy or gal) and that they really are the "best" at roleplaying games (whatever that means), so let him have his fun. Bragging about it is part of what makes it fun for him.

Tippy, I am very impressed by the size of your characters' cyber penises. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Please, tell us more about all of the awesome missions your GM let you plan and how wickedly awesome and brilliant you guys are. My group has clearly been playing shadowrun wrong for years. I want to hear more about 8 sociopaths that also happen to each be the single greatest person on earth in their respective fields. I haven't seen a Buckaroo Banzai movie in years.

[Emperor Tippy]

I agree, I get the same vibe, but you're not going to convince someone that's playing out a teenage power fantasy that no one's impressed by what his characters can do or that there might be some internal inconsistencies or flaws. Part of the power fantasy is believing that the game translates into some tangible self-worth (kidding, I'm sure Tippy's a perfectly nice guy or gal) and that they really are the "best" at roleplaying games (whatever that means), so let him have his fun. Bragging about it is part of what makes it fun for him.

I love the unsupported assumptions being made.

Let's see:
1) This has nothing to do with a "teenage power fantasy".
2) Being impressed or not with our characters isn't something I care about, being flat out wrong about what those actual ability scores mean in game and then telling me that I am playing the game wrong is what I care about. Do you have a 7 in a skill? Then congrats, by the rules you are the best damn person in that field in the world. Do you happen to have that 7 along with the linked attribute being a third higher than the supposed peak and then have a few hundred thousand or more in gear and ware focused on making you even better in that field? If so then you are so far beyond the 'elite' that they are gaping in awe. That is what those scores translate into in game. Are you a mage who has initiated 8 times and bought your magic up? Congrats, you are one of the five or so most powerful magic users in the world that was born after Christianity came around; again that is what those numbers mean. Are you a face with a 7 in negotiation? Congrats, you are on par with Damien Knight in the social field. You know all those corps short of the megas? They are running around using spiders with 3 ranks in the relevant skills (possibly 4). Guess what a Matrix backbone hub is rated at by RAW? Response 5, System 5, Firewall 3. Go look at page 207 and read the descriptions of what those different Spiders are. We are actually *increasing* security significantly above what the book pegs it at.

Tippy, I am very impressed by the size of your characters' cyber penises. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Please, tell us more about all of the awesome missions your GM let you plan and how wickedly awesome and brilliant you guys are. My group has clearly been playing shadowrun wrong for years. I want to hear more about 8 sociopaths that also happen to each be the single greatest person on earth in their respective fields. I haven't seen a Buckaroo Banzai movie in years.

Does you character have a skill at 6 with several others at 5? Congrats, you are military spec ops level. Most starting PC street sams or adepts are *better* than Red Samurai Lieutenants, look at page 283 of SR4A if you don't believe me.

Want to play a 400 BP runner as some just above a ganger street tough who can barely make ends meet? Go right ahead so long as you have fun. That doesn't change the fact that by the numbers you are significantly underselling your character.

Unlike you we played it straight. Yes, our hacker did his first run being one of the five or so best hackers on the planet. And our Adept was one of the best infiltration expects and assassins. Those are what their scores said at 400 BP. So we played it. As a team, with everyone of us being at the top of our chosen profession, we started off as one of the best teams of runners in the world.

---
Do you play SR with 400 BP characters and a team of runners with reasonably balanced skill sets? Congrats, you are one of the three or so best Runner teams on the *planet* in terms of pure ability. You might play stupid, die fast, and be nothing but wasted potential but you had that potential. It's what the book says those numbers mean.

Read the description of the CorpSec Lieutenant:

Security garrisons for particularly important corporate facilities may be assigned a wagemage to provide magical oversight. Because magic is still a scarce resource, security detail is usually an assignment to be pulled in addition to a mage’s normal work duties. Full-time security mages are rare except at the most sensitive of installations.

I draw your attention to the first and last sentences.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I am curious, Emperor Tippy. You say you have been playing these characters for the past 3 years Real TIme (and 13 Years In Game Time)...

1. Why did you feel the need to create characters who were the best in the world at character creation (Just because you CAN, does not mean that you SHOULD), and how did you reconcile this with having absolutely NO REPUTATION or APPROPRIATE LEVEL OF CONTACTS to back this level of expertise up?

2. How much Karma have you received. What is your current Karma Level?

This information may add some interesting points to the dicsussion.

[Emperor Tippy]

I am curious, Emperor Tippy. You say you have been playing these characters for the past 3 years Real TIme (and 13 Years In Game Time)...

1. Why did you feel the need to create characters who were the best in the world at character creation (Just because you CAN, does not mean that you SHOULD), and how did you reconcile this with having absolutely NO REPUTATION or APPROPRIATE LEVEL OF CONTACTS to back this level of expertise up?

Because it fit the concept of the game we wanted to play. One of the other players read one of the SR books and said "You know what, I want to own an AAA corp; think we could do it?" and we talked about it before coming up with the ground work to make it potentially possible. That's why the mage had Soul Bond, that's why most of us had backgrounds that acknowledged just how good they were and explained why they were running and how we all ended up in contact with one another. And we had the contacts, at least as a group. Or at least enough to start with a few to lay the ground work for the future. The rest got built in game by putting in the work.

2. How much Karma have you received. What is your current Karma Level?

This information may add some interesting points to the dicsussion.

We play with nuyen/karma exchange so that skews things a bit (only allowed to use money made from runs and not money from corporate activities). I believe that it was a little over twelve hundred points last time I tallied it up. About half of that coming from major runs and the other half coming from the characters minor runs (you get a point for being smart, a point for initiative, a point for role-playing).

Take the first run I mentioned, about turning the LS officer into a potential contact and source. That's a minor run, we usually pull off two or three of those a session (with good chunks of these run's done by e-mail) interspersed with the sessions major run; IC these tend to be runs that take less than a hundred hours of the characters time and are performed on an average of once a month or so.

[Neraph]

[ Spoiler ]

The SR group I regularly play with has the vast majority of our runs being things chosen by the group and not commissioned by anyone else, maybe one in five runs is commissioned (if that).

For example, our game last night consisted of using a previously established hack into Lone Star's personnel files and carefully analyzing them before choosing a Lieutenant as our mark. After that we hacked his, his wife's, and his two kids comlinks, broke into his house and bugged it, bugged his cop car and his families personal vehicles, hacked the children's private schools network and uploaded an agent to keep an eye on things, and then spent a week studying the family to find the best way to befriend them. It turned out that the LS Lieutenant (Matherson is his name) liked to rock climb at a local climbing gym and our face just "happened" to run into him there. Over the next 3 weeks our face carefully wormed his way into Matherson's confidence and the man is now quite convinced that he has found a buddy and friend who is a high level, freelance, facilitator that travels alot for his work.

While the face was doing that the rest of the party was creating a large collection of fabricated evidence that proves that Matherson was taking bribes from Knight Errant for privileged Lone Star information.

It was all to establish a contact that could prove useful in the future.

At the same time we were carefully manipulating the news media and public opinion with the rumor that Radiant Labs (a high end software R&D outfit) was going to be bought out by NeoNet and had a bleeding edge Firewall program in development that would likely be worth hundreds of millions. Even both of the companies involved thought they were in secret talks with one another. That is when we shorted Radiant Labs, got ourselves hired by Mitsuhama to destroy Radiant and provide them with a copy of Radiant's technical database. Using FlySpy's equipped with small amounts of plastic explosives we simultaneously assassinated all 234 employees of Radiant Labs, raided their R&D facility for a full copy of their database, and then unleashed several applications of Demolisher nanites to completely destroy Radiant's entire computer system. We then faked a copy of the tech database so that it didn't actually include anything particularly valuable and altered the comlink of Radiant's CEO to show that they whole thing was basically just a scam and that while they had some nifty programs they weren't anything special. In the end we made about a hundred K from the short sale after expenses and another two hundred K from Mitsuhama for delivering the faked tech database while also making off with the real database.

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Most of our runs are that kind of thing, where we decide what to hit, carefully plan the run (to the point of running full dress rehearsals in a VR simulation of the entire run), and then carry it out. These runs are either for money or to lay the ground work for future activities (making contacts, pre hacking databases that may be useful in the future, setting up infrastructure around the sprawl for future runs, etc.).

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So how many of your runs are self planned and how many are requests from others? And any interesting stories or ideas from runs of yours?

A small group of gutterslitches is not anywhere capable of "manipulating the news media and public opinion." Your GM is catatonic to allow such indiscretions slip past. I hope you guys have fun, but I refuse to read any more of The Emperor's threads.

[Emperor Tippy]

A small group of gutterslitches is not anywhere capable of "manipulating the news media and public opinion." Your GM is catatonic to allow such indiscretions slip past. I hope you guys have fun, but I refuse to read any more of The Emperor's threads.

Sure they are. Public opinion is easy to manipulate, both in real life and in SR, especially when you manipulate others into manipulating it for you. Especially when your Face is a well known, widely watched, and well respected Matrix personality (well under one of his aliases at least).

And yet again you are making a fundamental mistake when you refer to most any 400 BP character (much less 400 BP + 1200 Karma characters with several million in ware in their bodies) as a "gutterslitch".

What you are when you start, assuming you build pretty much the most generalist character around is nothing spectacular but is still better than what everyone buy the mega's employ. What you have with a bit of focus in your build is a character who any of the mega's would hire in a heart beat at a medium to high lifestyle. What you have when you actually specialize in a field is a character that mega's would willingly pay a million or so nuyen to acquire; possible more. Default starting characters in SR4 are very special.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Because it fit the concept of the game we wanted to play. One of the other players read one of the SR books and said "You know what, I want to own an AAA corp; think we could do it?" and we talked about it before coming up with the ground work to make it potentially possible. That's why the mage had Soul Bond, that's why most of us had backgrounds that acknowledged just how good they were and explained why they were running and how we all ended up in contact with one another. And we had the contacts, at least as a group. Or at least enough to start with a few to lay the ground work for the future. The rest got built in game by putting in the work.


We play with nuyen/karma exchange so that skews things a bit (only allowed to use money made from runs and not money from corporate activities). I believe that it was a little over twelve hundred points last time I tallied it up. About half of that coming from major runs and the other half coming from the characters minor runs (you get a point for being smart, a point for initiative, a point for role-playing).

Take the first run I mentioned, about turning the LS officer into a potential contact and source. That's a minor run, we usually pull off two or three of those a session (with good chunks of these run's done by e-mail) interspersed with the sessions major run; IC these tend to be runs that take less than a hundred hours of the characters time and are performed on an average of once a month or so.

So, just to get this straight... You have played for 3 years, every Week, for about 6-8 Hours/Week, and have 1200+ Karma. Is this correct?
Our group has also done this with our primary runners. With a LITTLE time off for alternate concepts and such, our prime Runners are in the 350 Karma Range. So, your GM/Table is giving out HUGE amounts of karma in comparison to what I would think Most tables give out.

As for what you can get away with with a 400BP character, I think you are highly skewed, since the limits of character generation do not allow you to have all the skills you mentioned (Individually) at Legendary Status (and you may only hggave 1 such skill ever), and the support skills needed to pull such things off are severely lacking in a 400 BP build.

Just sayin'

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Sure they are. Public opinion is easy to manipulate, both in real life and in SR, especially when you manipulate others into manipulating it for you. Especially when your Face is a well known, widely watched, and well respected Matrix personality (well under one of his aliases at least).

And yet again you are making a fundamental mistake when you refer to most any 400 BP character (much less 400 BP + 1200 Karma characters with several million in ware in their bodies) as a "gutterslitch".

What you are when you start, assuming you build pretty much the most generalist character around is nothing spectacular but is still better than what everyone buy the mega's employ. What you have with a bit of focus in your build is a character who any of the mega's would hire in a heart beat at a medium to high lifestyle. What you have when you actually specialize in a field is a character that mega's would willingly pay a million or so nuyen to acquire; possible more. Default starting characters in SR4 are very special.

And when you tell them "NO" they will then headhunt you anyway, or eliminate you so the competition does not get you. I really do think that you overlook a lot of things in the 6th world that work against you. But, as others have said, as long as you are having fun...

[Emperor Tippy]

So, just to get this straight... You have played for 3 years, every Week, for about 6-8 Hours/Week, and have 1200+ Karma. Is this correct?

Averaged, yes. We all work together and when we can't fit the time into one session we end up splitting it up throughout the week. Sometimes we played more, sometimes less. Sometimes more over e-mail.

Our group has also done this with our primary runners. With a LITTLE time off for alternate concepts and such, our prime Runners are in the 350 Karma Range. So, your GM/Table is giving out HUGE amounts of karma in comparison to what I would think Most tables give out.

Perhaps, we are following the guidelines for Karma hand outs. Plan your own run or do one that advances the plot/subplot? That's a point or 2. Play smart, that's another point. Roleplay your characters well, that's another point or two, surviving is another point, accomplishing you objectives is another point. Getting 8-10 points of Karma isn't particularly difficult.

If you survive, complete you objective, were acting on your own motivation, were smart, and roleplayed your character well then you should (per the guidelines) be pulling in 5 points of Karma for even minor runs.

As for what you can get away with with a 400BP character, I think you are highly skewed, since the limits of character generation do not allow you to have all the skills you mentioned (Individually) at Legendary Status (and you may only hggave 1 such skill ever), and the support skills needed to pull such things off are severely lacking in a 400 BP build.

Just sayin'

Pulling a 7 with 8 points in an attribute can be done in 400 point character generation if you want to make the investment and specialize. You can also put a skill group or two up to 4 points each along with the gear you need. Yes, do all that and you are the kind of person that the AAA's salivate about recruiting (at least in hacking).

Even average builds are still competing with the best that the corps have around. It's simply want that BP level is. You have to actively try and build characters that corps wouldn't salivate over employing.

And when you tell them "NO" they will then headhunt you anyway, or eliminate you so the competition does not get you.

Oh, agreed. It's one reason they are all so damn paranoid. An AA did actually try and extract our hacker, or at least who they thought was our hacker (we had someone disposable taking credit for his work). The stupid runners they hired made a complete mess of that facility. Dozens dead, millions in equipment trashed, parts of the building were structurally unsound; at least our insurance policy covered acts of terrorism. Pity for them that they didn't know their mark had a kink bomb in his head set to detonate if he left the property without the proper codes being sent first.

I really do think that you overlook a lot of things in the 6th world that work against you. But, as others have said, as long as you are having fun...

No, it's more that we cover the stuff but it's thousands of hours of gaming; explaining it in a thread would take way too long.

Especially when I'm simultaneously getting complaints that the security that I mention our GM throws out for A or better facilities and requires, in some cases, literally split second timing to succeed is too strong and also that the GM is basically letting us get away with way too much.

[Dr.Rockso]

Idea for a next adventure: Hack yourself some Thor shots and assassinate Lofwyr. Then take over S-K by right of apotheosis and then win Shaodwrun. Future runs can then include you single handedly stopping the Horrors while Harlequin and Ehran cheer you on from the sidelines. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/silly.gif)