Shadowrunners or In-house forces? Options

[A Rodent of Unus...]

If a Johnson is willing to trust a bunch of total strangers that someone he trusted enough to get him in touch with those strangers put together, I somehow doubt if he'd have the same problem trusting the fixer to begin with.

It's just another one of the little things about the game that I'm not very keen on. It may be well established and assumptions dictate that its acceptable, but it's just not very believable to me despite that. 'Course the same goes towards a lot of the weirdness that's accepted in the game, such as Dunkelzahn's blatant hit contract against a total stranger (while simultaneously trivializing it to the point of making it into a game, not to mention stripping them of their SIN). They even tried to rationzalize it in SotSW, but it wasn't even remotely convincing...

...but I'm digressing. I have no problem with a fixer (a term that covers way too much in the game to begin with) being the man a client hires to get a job done, and then that fixer doing the work to see it done. A megacorporation getting as close to the criminal element as a Johnson does is just public relations suicide if it backfires just once, and considering how many Shadowruns alledgedly occur at every hour of every day, that liability is stupefyingly high. Especially if you consider how common backstabbing Johnsons apparently are, which only provokes runners into seeking revenge.

But it's a fun game despite all of that, so it's relatively easy to overlook for the sake of playing a game. I just have trouble accepting anyone's attempts to rationalize that its either logical or remotely believable...

[Kagetenshi]

I think you have the wrong people. As far as I can remember, we at SotSW have never tried to rationalize Dunkie's will :)

~J

[A Rodent of Unus...]

Stupid S being so close to the D... I meant DotSW (Dragons of the Sixth World).

[John Campbell]

One point that no one's brought up that I think is worth considering: Runs are not always one megacorp hitting another megacorp. If you're playing internal power games, there could quite easily be very good reasons not to use internal assets for it.

[FlakJacket]

If you wanted complete and total deniability, without offing the runners since that's just not really cost-effective for the top flight ones, why not do like in Paycheck and delete their memories?

Magic, drugs, PAB's or best of all Laes would all probably work. Use two teams and keep them seperate- one that does the reasearch and planning and the others that do the actual job. The people going in are handed the mission briefing, prepare and do the job in say twenty four hours. Then straight back home, couple hits of Laes and get rid of the memories. Of course this is taking it to the extreme of deniability. :)

[Arethusa]

Uh, I imagine because runners would not be willing to do that. I don't trust the Johnson, and I sure as hell don't trust this syringe he gave me. No way am I going to willingly subject myself to memory deletion. And if the Johnson decides to try it with force, he'll either die or never get anyone willing to work with him again. Only place memory deletion could work is with inhouse people, and it's a major hit to morale. Bad idea all around.

[BitBasher]

I have to totally agree with artheusa on this one.

[FlakJacket]

Oh I know for the most part it's completely impractible. I was just laying it out as the most extreme option. :)

[TinkerGnome]

It's probably more cost effective just to kill them at that point ;) Who cares about a few dead runners? I mean, besides the runners themselves?

[Nikoli]

Makes me reconsider the Laes immunity idea...

[Kagetenshi]

The other runners who might later potentially take jobs from the employer.

~J

[Siege]

Who would willingly delete their memories? People who sign up for that as part of their contract.

Offer a few starving squatters a chance to get out of the slums, make absurd amounts of money and have a chance to muster out with some serious perks and you'd be amazed at how many would write off parts of their memory.

-Siege

[Kagetenshi]

Bunraku parlors do it. Why wouldn't a desperate runner?

~J

[Arethusa]

I'm certain some desperate and nearsighted runners would. But once you've got him in a position to remove his memory, what's to stop you from simply not paying him and telling him that he just wasn't what you were looking for when he wakes up? Yes, those who do not see past the inherent dangers will go for it and employers who have no interest in maintaining street cred might consider it for high risk stuff, but it's absurdly unprofessional and not like to be common.

[BitBasher]

[TinkerGnome]

But how is erasing memories any better?

I can agree that for a holy mother load of cash, you might get some runners to do it. But for less cash, you could hire the runners in such a way that their demise couldn't be traced back to you (any more so than their memories could be recovered, at least).

That said, it might be a cool game starter to have the PCs just waking up after having their memories erased... only to discover that the target of the run is now after them.

[Siege]

People able to think on their feet, with x amount of training and a purchased loyalty to the Company? Two years, substantial pay increase and perks as denoted in an Employee's contract might be considered a small price to pay for surrendering operational knowledge of a Mega-Corp's inner workings.

Granted, all of that could be achieved with p-fix BTLs and conditioning, but there is something to be said for hungry self-motivation.

I grant you, some 95% of runners would never agree to such dangerous terms for obvious reasons.

However, desperate runners (as mentioned previously) or desperate, starving refugees who would sell their souls for a chance not to die sprawled in the gutter with other sewer rats might find it a reasonably attractive proposition.

Employee Departure Clause: "Any Employee upon tendering resignation will be required to submit to a mustering out process. This process will include altering the Employee's memory regarding key elements of proprietary Company information including but not limited to access codes, policy and procedures, details of classified and confidential assignments and related materials. Failure to submit will result in immediate contract termination."

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

I always thought the Employee Departure Clause in this instance was a bullet fired into the pillow covering the company man's face in the middle of the night.

[Cain]

[Siege]

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Natch. Touche.