Shadowrunners, Bystanders, Security, and You, the Myth of the Moral Shadowrunner Options

[Ascalaphus]

I think there's a lot of potential in cutting deals. Shadowrunners have special skills, and there are enough people who'd want the use of them. A captured runner could have the choice of working for the Star on black ops, or be bought by Ares.

Cranial bombs and extensive brainwashing are quite possible, of course, or "an offer you can't refuse".

When they actually pass trial and all, they might meet people in prison interested in trading freedom for allegiance.



Also, consider this: what job opportunities are there for an ex-con with specialized criminal skills? Shadowrunning seems like the big one... It just doesn't get any easier with a criminal SIN, but what are you to do?

[Jericho Alar]

I don't care how tough a biker you are, a few strato-9's a km away are going to result in you becoming dog meat in under 6 seconds after they decide you are hostile. And a couple of Strato-9s (each with the included MMG and 500 rounds of ammo) are one of the main ways Lone Star patrols.

Even strato-9s fall to a sufficient number of anti-material guided missiles.

it's economics ultimately - sure you wipe out 20 gangers but then they've got 30 new recruits *tomorrow* and lay an ambush for you - and enough hi-explosives in the sky will eventually take a chopper or two down.

was it worth the pricetag to kill a few gangers?

meanwhile it's terrible PR. - you're in open urban warfare with a bunch of gangers - not very good for the 'boys in blue' image Lonestar is trying to cultivate.


*in the SR there's sufficient numbers of the SINless underclass to supply premier gangs with warm bodies.

[edit]guides->guided

[Kagetenshi]

Actually, Strato-9s are unusual insofar as they fall to just about anything if there isn't a Rigger jumped into them; they're low-Body and unarmored. Even with a Rigger your odds of taking it down are drastically better, as the Rigger actually has to spend Control Pool to dodge everything instead of just bouncing it.

~J

[CanadianWolverin...]

Phew... Just read through 9 pages of posts.

Anyways, I noticed no one brought up the what in my humble opinion is the best reason to not geek everybody you bump into on a run, seeing as pretty much all the other reasons have been covered:
- The Other Runners

Who are you more likely to be paranoid about being a part of your team? The runner who relatively values other's lives or the one who just sees them as a detriment to a short and/or long term goal?

I noticed Heat was brought up previously, sure, they went whole hog on the guards when the FNG did one for looking at his mask with that stunned expression on his face, but what did the rest of the group try to do to him later for bringing that heat down on them? Oh, and wouldn't you know it, that same asshole betrayed them to the "corp" later for his own continued serial killer existence. Sure, its just fiction, but so is SR. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

So I guess you are asking yourself, does geeking people in your way on a run bring heat down? Didn't we cover that already? IMHO, it sure as hell does, even more so in dystopian sci-fi future even if life is cheap it still costs something more than the return on investment in that rent-a-cop. Its all about the karma, which kind does your GM got stored up for you? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

And why does it always have to be about the ammo? Why not make the guard complicit in the act with a bribe and a favor since the corp treats him as expendable anyways? Potential contact, sleeping on the job, or corpse? *shrug*

[Traul]

Actually, Strato-9s are unusual insofar as they fall to just about anything if there isn't a Rigger jumped into them; they're low-Body and unarmored. Even with a Rigger your odds of taking it down are drastically better, as the Rigger actually has to spend Control Pool to dodge everything instead of just bouncing it.

~J

There's a reason why they are called stratos. With their vision magnification, they can safely fire from 1.200m and have no reason to come closer. This puts them out of range of any weapon smaller than an MMG. Anything smaller than a rocket launcher can only get them at extreme range. Only missiles have an easy time with them.

[Drraagh]

I think the key here is what type of game are you playing. What I am seeing from a lot of people, they are playing the game where runners are criminals, generally socipathic killer types with little remorse or regret. They are the people you call when you need dirty deeds done, and they won't lose much sleep when the time comes.

These are the same games where you have anarchistic type gangs setting up shop throughot the city, and the cops only care if it is someone under their jurisdiction. "Oh, there's a crime happening at that address? Wait, that's Ares territory, they'll handle it, but we'll place a unit in the area to keep them from doing the same to our clients." These are likely the same cops who'll take a bribe to look the other way. "No sir, I didn't /see/ anything illegal going on."

You kill someone, you leave them unconcious or you sneak past them, either way the corps are still going to come after you in some way, shape or form in a world like that most likely. Because you cost them, and if you cost them enough, they'll want you to make your money back. And besides, let's just think about what these corps have: Magic, cameras, security guards, drones, DNA, fingerprints. Heck, what's to stop a corp from putting out a few feelers and saying "Yeah, we're looking for some skilled people to go after some targets, sort of like the guys who did that Mitsu job a month back." Wouldn't be surprised if your fixer phones you and says, "Hey, got a job you guys might be good for", since the fixer sees it as an easy payday for them.

Now, not everyone plays in that same world. Some people play a world more like Robocop, where the cops actually care and will provide support. There was even a scene in Robocop 3 where the cops took off their badges, tossed them on the ground (all the while the OCP rep was going on about how they're putting their pension in jeopardy), and saying that kicking people out of their homes ain't work for cops. "Think about your family," says the rep. "I am," replies the sargent, "I'm thinking I have to go home and face them."

It is possible for runners to be criminals and still be the "good guys". Amanda Hades is a web-based series about a decker, a face and a techie who are out to spread the 'truth' about the atrocities done. Sneakers, sure it was back in the 1980's, but it was a well-planned and high-performing shadowrun team who broke into people's places so other people couldn't break into their places. Boondock Saints is another group of runners who were doing 'good things', Hardwired is a recent movie about a shadowrunning team doing good. Push could be considered that way. Kung Fu: The Legend Continues is an example of how you can be a shadowrunner and not go directly on shadowruns. Kwai Chang Caine was a kung fu master, his son Peter, a cop. The two of them would go around and solve crimes, help people in need, take down the bad guys, etc. (It may be more work for a GM to craft a storyline this way as opposed to the 'corporate dungeoncrawl of the week' type shadowruns)

The body count doesn't make a team good or bad, but leaving people unconcious or sneaking past them is so much better for that rep. And good or bad is all an idea of perception, the corp views your actions as bad, but the people you're doing it for view your actions as good. The normal civilians would look at amanda Hades news hacks (much like Dark Angel's 'Eyes Only') likely as a hero, a champion of the masses giving them the real story (the ones who saw past the corporate bull coverstories, anyway). The people who Caine helped would be quite grateful, but the people who lost money and the like would be pissed.

You can also create runners who do the whole Robin Hood thing, but that's up to the GM as much as the players. I've had players that wanted to do that, set up a small community where people were welcome so long as they didn't cause trouble, and they would do runs for water, food, fuel, spare parts, clothing, etc.

[Jericho Alar]

There's a reason why they are called stratos. With their vision magnification, they can safely fire from 1.200m and have no reason to come closer. This puts them out of range of any weapon smaller than an MMG. Anything smaller than a rocket launcher can only get them at extreme range. Only missiles have an easy time with them.

I've been trying to hunt down the specific quote on the lieutenant of the spikes, but she's described as riding into 'battle' with those precise two weapons on either shoulder. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

again though, I'm not really disputing that it's in Lonestar's capability to do something about it - what I'm disputing is that Lonestar doesn't care enough to deal with the problem on more than a cursory and situational basis. The fact that the major gangs in SR3 absolutely are paramilitary organizations more than capable of procuring, fielding, and successfully deploying military grade weaponry (up to and including guided warheads) just makes the calculus of not caring enough that much easier for the 'star.

[kzt]

It's always amused me that the 30-40 (Per New Seattle) spikes can ignore 5000? or lone star guys and lone star, noted for brutality, never figures out how they might prevent being constantly humiliated. Doublethink, it's not just for writers anymore...

[Jericho Alar]

It's always amused me that the 30-40 (Per New Seattle) spikes can ignore 5000? or lone star guys and lone star, noted for brutality, never figures out how they might prevent being constantly humiliated. Doublethink, it's not just for writers anymore...

because the 5000~ lone star guys have bigger fish to fry than the 30-40 spikes chilling out on I-5 at 3 in the morning. Policing is quite different when it's run for profit.

There are precious few cases of the 'star ever being humiliated by a gang other than the paramilitary ancients (who operate more as an arm of the Tir army than they do a gang in SR3 anyway) anyway - mostly the 'star just declines to tangle with them. When they *do* care, they're out in force and the gangs give them a pretty wide berth.

[Fuchs]

In my campaign gangs, Ancients and whatever, are not on the same levle as cops, corps, much less the army. The only reason they don't get wiped out is that they usually stick to areas the cops and corps don't care about.

I also don't get why the Ancients are supposed to be special - the one official Run I saw them in, forgot the name but had some elf murder their boss to rise in power I think, described them as just small fry gang scum.

[Jericho Alar]

In my campaign gangs, Ancients and whatever, are not on the same levle as cops, corps, much less the army. The only reason they don't get wiped out is that they usually stick to areas the cops and corps don't care about.

I also don't get why the Ancients are supposed to be special - the one official Run I saw them in, forgot the name but had some elf murder their boss to rise in power I think, described them as just small fry gang scum.

In older editions they were rumored to be bankrolled (on the quiet) by the government of Tir Tairngire. I'm not sure if that's still the case. Given how quickly the gang went from incredibly small fry to biggest gang in the 'plex I think that rumor has been borne out by later events.

cops *are* corps by the way; and again, you're playing a game where 4-6 for-hire thugs routinely make fools out of the corps; is it really so hard to believe that a couple dozen guys on bikes with RPGs and Assault Rifles could do the same late at night in areas outside of the actual corporate enclaves, in a place where third shift is unlikely to care at all beyond maybe sending the occasional patrol out just to buzz by and shoot half-heartedly?

[Fuchs]

In older editions they were rumored to be bankrolled (on the quiet) by the government of Tir Tairngire. I'm not sure if that's still the case. Given how quickly the gang went from incredibly small fry to biggest gang in the 'plex I think that rumor has been borne out by later events.

cops *are* corps by the way; and again, you're playing a game where 4-6 for-hire thugs routinely make fools out of the corps; is it really so hard to believe that a couple dozen guys on bikes with RPGs and Assault Rifles could do the same late at night in areas outside of the actual corporate enclaves, in a place where third shift is unlikely to care at all beyond maybe sending the occasional patrol out just to buzz by and shoot half-heartedly?

That's the point - if they make fools of the cops they cross the line. If they don't the cops don't care. There is no "the cops don't care, yet are made fools" in my campaign.

That shadowrunners are mercenaries, tools of corps, is another important distinction. Corps can expect to employ runners as assets when needed. Gangs are different, acting for themselves, not for a Johnson, so a corp will come down much harder on a gang than on a team of runners in my campaigns.

And of course having a few ARs and RPGs doesn't mean a thing - the gangs in my campaign are thugs, and even average corp forces have much better training with their gear.

[Kagetenshi]

sure it was back in the 1980's

Everything of value is.

You can also create runners who do the whole Robin Hood thing

You mean the Robin Hood described by Walter Bower in 1440 as "the famous murderer"?

Fuchs: the gangs in your campaign may be thugs, but that means your campaign isn't following canon and is thus of marginal value to the discussion:

An exceptionally well-trained gang, the Ancients frequently display military-style precision in their operations and in combat. Their ability to get their hands on SOTA military equip- ment for any operation they undertake—combined with their for- midable organization and training—has given them a fearsome reputation[…]

Lord Togo is described as a highly skilled tactician, which jibes well with the fact that the Spikes have open animosities with the Ancients and yet haven't been wiped out. Wolfram is more subtle, but nevertheless his gang contains Shoot-to-Kill and Hammerhead and is still described as not having screwed up.

Anyway, it's clearly time for another read-through of the Lone Star Sourcebook, so I'll post my findings as they come.

~J

[Fuchs]

Lord Togo's in jail afaik. And SR4 corrected some of the excesses. I hope they'll cut down the elven hype as well.

[Kagetenshi]

Not as of any edition this thread is about.

~J

[Fuchs]

But one can still use SR canon - the Spikes will still be around even without Togo leading their battles.

[Critias]

It's always amused me that the 30-40 (Per New Seattle) spikes can ignore 5000? or lone star guys and lone star, noted for brutality, never figures out how they might prevent being constantly humiliated. Doublethink, it's not just for writers anymore...

Don't forget, the Spikes also used to regularly ambush Tir Border Patrol units with impunity. It wasn't just every cop and elf in Seattle that they were able to flip the bird to because their leader read Sun Tzu, it was the Tir Uber Alles types down South a few miles, too, that flailed helplessly instead of ever figuring out a way to hurt the Spikes back.

[Kagetenshi]

But one can still use SR canon - the Spikes will still be around even without Togo leading their battles.

It's always been my position that SR1-3 and SR4 cannot be meaningfully discussed as the same game world, not even to the degree that SR1-3 can be relative to each other; I would view some of the issues that have come up in this thread since its resurrection as firmly supporting that view.

(If you're now wondering why on earth I posted a link to it in an SR4 thread, I'd forgotten how extensive the changes were and foolishly thought they wouldn't apply here)

~J

[Fuchs]

How would the changes from SR3 to SR4 influence the situation between gangs and cops/corps?

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Seattle will be a very bad place to be a ganger for some months after KE gets the contract in 2072.

Because the underworld turmoil caused by Tempo was the reason LS lost it.

[Fuchs]

I meant the rules changes. Setting changes are clear, but how do the rules changes affect the gang/corp balance?

[Saint Sithney]

That shadowrunners are mercenaries, tools of corps, is another important distinction. Corps can expect to employ runners as assets when needed. Gangs are different, acting for themselves, not for a Johnson, so a corp will come down much harder on a gang than on a team of runners in my campaigns.

And of course having a few ARs and RPGs doesn't mean a thing - the gangs in my campaign are thugs, and even average corp forces have much better training with their gear.

Another reason Gangs would get it worse than Runners is that Runners are individuals, while gangs are groups. Groups have the potential to grow and become more and more dangerous, since they are people uniting under symbols and ideologies which say it is a good idea to mess with corp Z. Whereas, an Individual has a limited, defined growth potential. So, a few gangers with access to milspec toys acting in open defiance to an organization with thousands of soldiers, all also armed with milspec hardware would be seen as a potential source of disruption and snuffed routinely. This would naturally leave the survivors of such purges to resort to extreme acts of guerrilla retaliation... thereby providing a good backdrop to a run. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Kagetenshi]

I meant the rules changes. Setting changes are clear, but how do the rules changes affect the gang/corp balance?

My point is mostly that the setting changes are so extreme that it simply isn't the same world anymore, and thus while I don't know that the practical arguments for lethal force in this thread don't work in SR4 (except for the fact that you can get longer Physical tracks than Stun tracks in SR4, which gives Stun a practical advantage), the arguments that I can present often turn out to simply not apply in the SR4 world.

That said, the rules changes do shift some things; for example, the fact that advancement for standard-rule-adhering metahumans is capped very near what is attainable at chargen limits the degree an individual from either side can outclass typical opposition.

Flight's boarding, more later.

~J

[Jericho Alar]

I meant the rules changes. Setting changes are clear, but how do the rules changes affect the gang/corp balance?

The short answer is they didn't.

that said SR4 is as close to a reboot of canon you are likely to get; what many refer to as "Excesses" are things that alot of players loved about the setting.

some of us massively prefer "Mad Max" to "Minority Report".


The fact of the matter is, in SR1-3 [edit]some of[/edit] the gangs are military level organizations; if they aren't played that way then it's a deviation from canon (which, while perfectly allowable would be a case of personal reinterpretation and have little bearing on how things 'are' in the hypothetical SR game.)

Since it keeps coming up; SR4 leaves things a little more open to interpretation, for instance, the reference to the Ancients in Runner Haven's is:

Some gangs are so big that they actually have “chapters” in different
cities, and operate more like small crime syndicates than street
gangs. Here are a couple that have a strong presence in Seattle.
The Ancients
Turf: All over Seattle..
The Ancients are an all-elf go-gang and one of the largest in
Seattle. They have chapters all over North America—make that
the world—but the Seattle chapter has been infused with numerous
exiles from Tir Tairngire... They control smuggling
from Salem and Portland into Seattle, as well as running protection
rackets and other small-time operations.

obviously they're a powerful international organization (in a game where powerful criminal international organizations have spawned AAA megacorporations accidentally.) but it doesn't actually discuss organization, bankroll or tactics.

I don't know what 2072 says because I haven't been able to obtain a copy yet. All that said though, this is still an SR3 continuity thread, and as such the events from 2066-2072 aren't really applicable.

[kzt]

Some gangs are so big that they actually have “chapters” in different
cities, and operate more like small crime syndicates than street
gangs. Here are a couple that have a strong presence in Seattle.

Yeah, that seems really powerful and so unlike modern times. Hundreds of members wow. I can't think of anything like in modern times, other then Hells Angels, Mongols, Banditos, Outlaws, Sons of Silence, Gangster Disciples, Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings, Asian Boyz, Nortenos, Black Stone Nation, MS13, Vice Lords, Tiny Rascals, 18th Street, Florencia 13, Fresno Bulldogs, Surenos, Nuestra Familia, Aryan Brotherhood, La Eme, Barrio Azteca, Mexikanemi, and Neta. Oh and the hundreds of gangs larger than every gang mentioned in SR. I can't imagine any police would even try to mess with any organization as powerful as the 50,000 members of the Gangster Disciples in Chicago, much less throw Larry Hoover and most of the rest of the leadership in prison for the rest of their lifes. So yeah, I can see how they would be all powerful in the future. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)