I had posted a question over in SR4, but was pointed here as a more appropriate place. I'm going to be running SRM02-01 for some new-to-SR friends next week. How do you handle SINners, particularly in border crossings? I'm expecting that the players will use an AT from the book, some of whom are SINners. What kind of tips would you give to a player given that who's never played SR before (e.g. "You heard from some guy that if you want to run ops but you've got a real SIN, you'd better use coyotes rather than the normal border crossings -- it's less trouble in the long run.")?

Tetsu--the good news here is that Parliament of Thieves was written to teach players the basic rules and premises of SR4. Mr Johnson gives the runners contact information for 2 coyotes who make their living shuttling people back and forth across the border without questions asked. Better yet, the Johnson is picking up the tab so they don't even have to pay for the service.

If that isn't enough to get the runners to take the easy (some might say scripted) way then let them run the border. The mechanic I would personally use is to have the border guards ask the nature of the runners business in the CAS, duration of stay, etc while they run the SINs. (See the section about Border Crossings within the Mission for info about the related tests for Fake SINs etc) When the runner starts lying, which he will have to do, roll a Judge Intentions for the border guard test opposed by the Runner's Charisma + Etiquette or Con. Exceptional success on the side of the guard or a glitch on the runner's side will result in further questioning.

Another approach would be to talk to the players as they pick characters. Let them know how pervasive information tracking is in SR4 and explain that if they happen to do anything that would draw suspicion to them, individuals with SINs will be easier to track. (Especially if they use their real SIN at official checkpoints like a border crossing.)

Hope that helps!

PS--If you are ever in the Redmond area, stop by Genesis Games and Gizmos. They have occasional Missions events and the owner can probably put you in touch with some of the people involved.

Heyas,

Sorry for the slow response here. You actually posted it during Origins -- one of the bigger summer cons. I just got back tonight.

It looks like McQuillan posted a pretty solid answer, however. Ultimately, a SINner should be able to cross the border without any real problems -- unless they're bringing something illegal. Then it's just a matter of how well they can negotiate the issue. For purposes of quick resolution, I'd just do Etiquette + Charisma with a threshold equal to the TR.