Tips for all shadowruners. Options

[KarmaInferno]

If you're a drone rigger, give all your team members FOF transponders so the drones don't target them.

Don't tell your friends that the transponders contain remotely detonated high explosive. Y'know. just in case.

And if nothing else you can always switch the "friend" tags to "foe"

:D


-karma

[DocMortand]

[lodestar]

Misdirection is key. Always give the cops or sec boys something else to think about. In most cases they won't look for something small gone if there's something obvious gone - at the very least it might buy you some time.

Use stolen vehicles - especially if you're the rigger, your own precious babies are too expensive and valuable to waste on some efforts. Your own toys should really only be used for recon and other non in the line of fire uses. If necessary, spray paint and a stolen licence plate is a quick way to elude some persuers for a quick bit.

Non lethal means are often more cost effective than lethal ones. Your fist, or a baton is a quick way to disable someone, and don't cost nothing. Remember each bullet you use is one that goes against your profit margin at the end.

If in doubt wreck everything, and fire purges all. Want it tough t for the cops to find evidence? Burn it. Incediary devices are easy to make from common household items. Just be careful you don't burn yourself. At the very least the cops are going to have to wait until the FD cools it all down.

Always have a back up plan, a drek hits the fan plan. Have a cover story, an alibi and an escape route. At least have someone you can blame.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Take twice as much ammo as you think you're going to need. Plan to do it without guns if possible, but have them ready in case.

Remember everythings legal in the shadows as long as you don't get caught.;)

[Vera53]

Make sure that the escape plan is not the same route from where you first entered the security site. Also have more than one escape plan/exit route, since they can and often do become blocked. Plus if you have to re-enter the security site for some reason you have another way to escape that might not have already been compromised from a previous run.

Vera53

[toturi]

Know yourself and know your enemy; in 100 runs, you will be successful 100 times.

- Ancient 6th world proverb

Have an edge, use that edge, abuse that edge, don't lose that edge.

[Fix-it]

Anyone know any chemicals known to produce temporary amnesia???

could be usefull.

[Sahandrian]

Laes causes permanent memory loss, erasing up to 12 hours of recent experience. But it has that :nuyen: 1000 per dose price tag and 21/21d availability...

Maybe if you got some of the stuff, you could use the Chemistry skill to alter it to a temporary form...

[Fix-it]

Or if you have a kind GM, you could use a Chemistry knowledge skill to synthesize some of it yourself.

meh... Easier just to get a mage to use an alter memory spell.

[Sahandrian]

I thought that had some pretty severe restrictions on it. Things like only working on five-second intervals or something.

[Snow_Fox]

[Mercer]

I thought thats what the barcodes on the backs of the heads were for...

Another thing you should shy away from is having a lot of bunnies molded out of C-12 with blinking red detonators for eyes. It unsettles the non-demolitionally minded.

And it Reminds me of the time Homer was childproofing the wall sockets by drawing bunny faces on them.
Marge: But Maggie's not afraid of bunnies.
Homer: She will be.

[Garland]

If one is currently involved in illegal activity, one MUST NOT give an officer of the law one's real ID.

True story.

[ES_Riddle]

[offtopic]

[draco aardvark]

[Puck Wildhorse, ...]

Wow, I wander away for a week and this topic has covered a lot of ground. Some generic advice is stay away from loonies and players who over specialize their characters. Also, its usually best to start out using minimal force and work your way upwards (i.e., intimidate a guy rather than fight him; beat a guy up rather than cut him; knife a guy rather than shoot him; use a small, silent weapon rather than a big, noisy one; use a noisy weapon rather than a grenade; use a grenade rather than a satchel charge; etc.) Leave a guy beat up and unconscious and not too many heads will turn. Leave a building on fire and a crowd will gather. Of course if the bad guys go straight to the heavy ordinance, you should probably do the same or run.

As an in game example, one guy in my group brought in an adept who was ambidextrous, had edged weapons 5 (katana 7), and the adept power that adds dice to his katana skill. With two katanas, he rolled something like 15 dice before using any combat pool. I couldn’t tell you what other skills he had, just that he was never seen to do anything useful except fight.

In one fight, he was tagging along with the Face to keep her safe. Our team was in Calgary, Canada and we needed some local knowledge, so the Face and the Swordsman drive our one vehicle to a bar to talk to a local fixer. She leaves the kimono wearing swordsman in the car outside. There’s no one in the bar except the fixer and two of his goons. She has her meeting and the fixer decides to grab her (not sure why, except the Face has a charisma of 10 and likes to give a lot of come hither stares). The Face screams and the swordsman walks in, draws his swords and attacks. The GM plays along and has two guys attack the swordsman in melee combat, one unarmed and one with a club, I think.

The scene becomes Kill Bill vol. 1 with arms chopped off and big pools of blood and gore everywhere. With the two henchmen down, the swordsman advances on the last guy, who was holding the Face. He pushes the Face aside, pulls a shotgun from under his coat and fires from point blank, doing a serious wound. The swordsman survives and kills the last guy. Now, we have a Swordsman in a blood soaked kimono with a serious chest wound. The bar is covered in blood, some of which belongs to the Swordsman. So the Face and the Swordsman hop in the car and head back to the hotel where the rest of us are hanging out.

First lesson from above: Specialists rule in their arena but can easily be faced with a situation they can’t handle. Swords aren’t very useful in a gun fight. So far as I know, the Swordsman didn’t even have a gun.

Second lesson from above: Start with intimidation. The swordsman could have easily tried to stare the bad guys down or threaten them with serious harm. Something like, “Let her go or I’ll skin you, eat you and use your shin bone as a pencil box!” may have worked.

Third lesson from above: It’s always a good idea to have several vehicles, even when traveling. None of the rest of the team could go to their aid because they had the only car.

Fourth lesson from above: A mage with the sterilize spell can get you out of a jam in a hurry.

To finish the story, my character and the mage took the car and headed back to the bar. I dropped the mage off about 200 yards from the bar (the bar was on a rural road and it would have looked suspicious if I stopped right at the bar). There were a few police cars outside the bar and a couple of policemen waiting for the CSI types. The mage used a mask spell to make her look like a crime scene photographer and she talked her way inside. Once in there, she cast sterilize and managed to get into the back room where the VCR was located for the bar’s security camera. She grabbed the tape (or crystal or whatever) and split before the real crime scene investigators showed up. As a result, we were able to continue operating for several more days without Knight Errant breathing down our necks.

[kryton]

I've always found it kind of funny how few of my players take the precaution to wear a mask. It's quick and easy and takes care of all those nasty security camera's. I love flashing a picture of the players on the evening news......Actually I've always wanted to go into a K-mart and buy a shotgun, box ammo, and a ski mask.....Although I don't think my wife would find it that funny when she has to come up with bail money......If only I was 18 and stupid again.

Remember if ski masks are good enough for British Hooligans then they're good enough for your characters.

[Voran]

[Voran]

Other tips. Assume you're going to get hit by some sort of chemical concoction. Whether its riot foam, neurostun, whatever. Take precautions as possible.

Don't forget to look directly above you from time to time.

In the day and age of 2064, maybe investing in colorchanging hair is a good idea. Buying hair that can be preorganized into different styles is also useful.

Never use anything you're desperately afraid of losing. Signature weapons and customized super-armors are nice, but it'll suck all the more when you have to ditch it. And at some point, you probably will.

Usually it's better to be a quiet badass, than a loud jackass.

You're going to need a knife eventually.

Be careful the girl you're feeling up isn't some mafia don's daughter.

[lorthazar]

if you are doing proper leg work you can sometimes find someone who is pulling a run against the same corp you are. This can make a very useful distraction.

Capsule rounds loaded with Hyper are a good thing

Same goes for MAO

Every gunbunny should own an Armtech MGL-6, any grenade launcher you can conceal is a good thing. And Anit Bullet barrier do not stop grenades.

Stealth is great but remember that when the shooting does starts you might wish you had gotten a gasvent for you SMG instead of a suppressor.

Don't yell "reload" when you paid good money for that radio/transducer combo.

Make friends with at least one gang. It will save your life later.

Killing LS is a bad thing. Tying them naked to a carousel in a compromising postion, however discredits them completely. (Saw it in Men at Work)

If one of the enemy Physads is a woman, she can shred trolls with her pinky.

Physads who underestimate Samurai always wind up dead.

Yes, a Ranger-X Bow in the hands of a troll counts as a sniper weapon.

Ask not what your fixer can do for you, but what you can do for your fixer.