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irinoxx
-Splitting from the "Exoware" thread-
QUOTE (Witness)
Mind you that just makes me wonder why anybody ever does a job with their meat body!

This is a good question. I've thought about it a few months ago, and really it appears that the only right way of shadowrunning is to do it remotely.
Since SR4, security and tracking are just overwhelming. A couple of guys can't walk nowhere without being tagged, scanned, photographed ten times a second. Them being able to sneakily act and then vanish in the city isn't really believable when you consider the ubiquity of the wireless matrix, agents, drones, RFID sensors, and watcher spirits. eek.gif

I came to the conclusion that a shadowrunner serious about his business and caring about not going to jail should never, ever be physically in the vicinity of it's target. He should only use remote action (hacking, drones, spirits, astral projection, bribes, whatever), and make sure to carefully clear data/astral/money trail as he goes. Even then he is at great risk of being dicovered.

But then, I realize that Shadowrun isn't supposed to be a game about crime investigation evasion, it's more of a game about "Bruce-Willis-in-Die-Hard-ism". Nevertheless, I'd apreciate that some players give a little more thought about not getting caught, and twist their characters into clever professionals instead of gung-ho punks, and then relying on the GM for making antagonist corporations oversighting obvious clues and giving Lone Star investigators the IQ of an oyster. ohplease.gif

A PC shadowrunner that could realistically do his job and stay alive for more than a few weeks, that'd be a refreshing change. wink.gif
WhiskeyMac
Key points against remote jobs: WI-FI retardant paints and wallpapers and wards, as well as hardwired systems.

Those things basically rule out most of the actions you suggested. Bribes only work so far and what if the person gets greedy and holds out on ya? What then?

I hear ya about the living beyond a week thing. I just started and stopped a session with a player who's character was borderline psychotic. I knew from the second he told me how many guns he wanted to carry on him ( eek.gif ) that he was going to be trouble.
irinoxx
QUOTE (WhiskeyMac @ Jul 13 2006, 05:22 AM)
Key points against remote jobs: WI-FI retardant paints and wallpapers and wards, as well as hardwired systems.

Those things basically rule out most of the actions you suggested. Bribes only work so far and what if the person gets greedy and holds out on ya? What then?

Sure, remote runs aren't any easier. All the things you mentioned are real problems. But that's what the game is about : circumventing security devices, solving problems, and earn money. Of all the things you mentioned, I can't really find one that is an absolute wall to a remote attack. Any of these could be circumvented in various ways by a good team of runners. cool.gif

Very often, security is certainly outsourced to another company, which has to have remote access to the site for monitoring and intervention. Which means that there are holes in the defensive shell. If remote monitoring and remote interventions are possible, then remote attack is possible.

Let's not forget that usability hates security. Which means the more protections and security procedures a site has, the less efficient it becomes. Corporations certainly don't want to report big maintainance costs and mediocre results at the board of directors. That's why most of the time, security spending is not a priority, money generating activities are. sleepy.gif

So, well, I think most of the time, nothing prevents remote shadowruns. Which makes it pretty risky to physically show up on the crime scene, where the odds are that you won't be able to pull out quickly, healthy and unnoticed in case of a problem.
When you're remote, they have to get to you and cross your metaphorical security minefield, which means you can have some time to cover your tracks, erase proofs, hide the stolen stuff, and/or, if it's really bad, hit the road and get plastic surgery elsewhere. cyber.gif
ornot
I agree that with the many potential data trails having your runners get away with half the stuff they usually do requires a degree of suspension of disbelief. However, as most runners lack a SIN they cannot easily be traced by the authorities and there are an awful lot of people in the city that The Man oversees. Couple this with a lack of cooperation between competing companies and it's not too much of a stretch to say that a runner can get away with a few jobs before the Star or other enemies start to close in on him.

Provided my runners make an effort to conceal their identities while on a run (masks, disguises, spoofing data trails) and don't expect to keep their SINs for more than 3 or 4 runs I'm prepared to allow them to keep the law at arms length.
Aaron
It is true that the scene of a (recent) shadowrun will offer up clues about the perpetrators. Investigators can scoop up DNA evidence and fingerprints, and astral investigators can discern an astral signature if they arrive soon enough. On its face, it would seem that a shadowrunner would get tracked down and arrested.

However, I don't think this is a problem. It's in the way 2070 is set up. Most shadowrunners don't have SINs. An investigating body can collect the data, sure, but without any other data with which to associate it, the data is meaningless.

Consider a forensic drama where the stars of the show collect fingerprints that are not on any file. They've got a fingerprint, but unless they can track down its owner, they can't use it.

Also in the runners' favor is the fact that the world of 2070 is far more fragmented, not only in governments but in corporations, none of whom share their information willingly. I imagine that when you offer an Ares SIN to a Tir system, that system sends an inquiry to Ares, but only gets a confirmation in return, just like a modern-day request from one government to another. Nations are reluctant to share any more data than necessary, and megacorps even more so. It takes significant diplomacy and cooperation in the real world to get governments to share such data, and diplomacy and cooperation are lacking in the world of Shadowrun.

These are just a couple of the issues with the "back end" of forensic analysis in the Sixth World. I haven't even mentioned that such tasks as cleansing astral signatures and covering data trails require only seconds to perform, or that the number of hacking runs on such a popular target as the databases that hold forensic evidence must be annoying, if not staggering.

It is true, however, that a shadowrunner will leave scraps of evidence; no ship passes without leaving a wake. But unless a runner takes jobs against the same target repeatedly, or has the SINner quality and a SIN with a target, such evidence builds slowly over her career. The game already has a mechanic for this phenomenon: Public Awareness.

If you're looking for extra rules for the "forensic effect," I suggest slapping a runner that has been extra sloppy about leaving evidence behind with a point of Notoriety (which also, incidentally, raises Public Awareness).
irinoxx
Insightful, Aaron. Thanks. smile.gif
Derek
QUOTE

It's in the way 2070 is set up. Most shadowrunners don't have SINs. An investigating body can collect the data, sure, but without any other data with which to associate it, the data is meaningless.

Consider a forensic drama where the stars of the show collect fingerprints that are not on any file. They've got a fingerprint, but unless they can track down its owner, they can't use it. 


Sure they can. With a bit of DNA, and 2070's technology, they can almost surely make a good picture of what the person is like, probably about how old they are, whether they are an ork, troll, etc..., possibly even what they ate for dinner last night, if they got enough skin flakes and hair traces. Just because someone doesn't have a SIN, doesn't mean they aren't in the system somewhere.


QUOTE

Also in the runners' favor is the fact that the world of 2070 is far more fragmented, not only in governments but in corporations, none of whom share their information willingly. I imagine that when you offer an Ares SIN to a Tir system, that system sends an inquiry to Ares, but only gets a confirmation in return, just like a modern-day request from one government to another. Nations are reluctant to share any more data than necessary, and megacorps even more so. It takes significant diplomacy and cooperation in the real world to get governments to share such data, and diplomacy and cooperation are lacking in the world of Shadowrun. 


However, you are right, this is what saves the runners. There is plenty of data out there about each and every runner, even the SINless ones; their DNA profiles are in a large number of places, depending on their background. However, each profile is not linked to the others, and the data is scattered around the balkanized states and corps that are out there, none of them sharing their data.

There are plenty of clues for any corporation and/or government to track down a criminal or runner, but getting access to all the pieces of data and clues takes plenty of time, and money, and unless the corp really wants to find the runner, they won't invest huge amounts of time or money.
CradleWorm
I have a couple of comments here. We can't really draw a strait line between technology and security. I would say that your right and a shadowrunning team is probably going to be picked up on 20 camera's for just walking down the block. The real question is: Is anyone going to look at the footage.

If no one ever suspects any thing went wrong, no one will ever look at the camera footage. When someone eventually does see something wrong they may try to pull up the footage, and if you have a decent hacker you have already taken care of it.

But lets just assume that eventually your team makes a mistake and gets caught on camera. Biometric tell tale signs could be used to identify them, if they were in the system. DNA could be used if they had a SIN and had a reason to ever give a DNA sample to the bank (ie they were super rich and most runners aren't).

So shadowrunners don't leave much of a trace even if they are on camera. Also, even if you were able to identify a shadowrunner, perhaps from past encounters, what are you going to do about it after the fact? Shadowrunners are hard to find. They don't leave credit trails to follow around and frequently live in uncontrolled area's of the city (ie lone star doesn't go there without an army).

Shadowrunners also have contacts on the street that can hide them, help them generate new identities overnight, they will use plastic surgery to change their appearance and so on.

So from a corporate standpoint, you are able to identify a shadowrunning team that has managed to infiltrate your security and steal some precious widget. Unless you can get that widget back before the team hands it over to their unknown employer and disappears back into the shadows your out of luck unless you are willing to spend millions to track them down. From a bottom line standpoint, stolen stuff is a historical cost once you can't recover it. You don't spend the opportunity to generate future profits by wasting resources finding a shadowrunner that may one day be able to improve your bottom line by running against your competition.
sorcel
QUOTE (Aaron)
It is true, however, that a shadowrunner will leave scraps of evidence; no ship passes without leaving a wake. But unless a runner takes jobs against the same target repeatedly, or has the SINner quality and a SIN with a target, such evidence builds slowly over her career. The game already has a mechanic for this phenomenon: Public Awareness.

This, I think, it what really screws a 'runner in the end. Any security firm worth its salt will do a reasonably thorough forensic sweep at the scene of a shadowrun; they'll surely find DNA and fingerprints, among other things. And they won't just throw all that evidence in the trash when they can't find a SINner who matches. All that incriminating data will be stored away, awaiting the day when the person who matches finally makes a mistake. A 'runner unlucky enough to get caught might find himself being linked to many of his previous crimes via the breadcrumb trail of skin cells and fingerprints from aaaaaall the runs he's ever done.

As for cross-pollination of SIN data? The setting tries to throw 'runners a bone by presenting the various corporo-political states as paranoid and unwilling to share. But really, how hard is it for, say, Mitsuhama to forward DNA and fingerprint info to the Star with a little note saying, "Hey, if you catch this guy, we want him"? If a target is mad enough -- if they want you bad enough -- all they need to do is say something. What's a SINless to do?

Periodically hack the datastores where such evidence would be kept. That's what.

-S
Jagdcarcajou
Heya,

Good thoughts on this thread so far. I agree with the folks saying that having some info on the runners is not a disbelief-breaker.

As others have pointed out, a runner might have to evac a site quickly and leave some trace (camera image, DNA, electronic signature, whatever). So Corp security starts up a file on "Mr. X." Let's say they have DNA and a fingerprint. Well, having that isn't going to suddenly make Mr. X surface from the shadows. Let's assume they extrapolate that Mr. X is an Elf male, approximately 6' tall, originally with green eyes. That doesn't actually give them a whole lot more to work with. If Mr. X took any sort of precautionary measures (wore a mask, erasing camera records, fake SIN, secured Commlink, etc.), then they won't exactly have a strong lead to go on. If he didn't then he won't last long as a shadowrunner.

Mr. X might have similar files with 6 corps, and the mafia, but its all the same sketchy information. Sharing (as unlikely as that is) wouldn't exactly shed a lot of light on the situation. Unless Mr. X really pissed someone off on the run, they will likely chalk it up to the price of doing business in 2070, and let the insurance cover the losses.

As often as data changes, that trail would be worthless in 2070, and every corp would know it. They might have a 3-4 hour window to trace electronic trails before they get erased, spoofed, or otherwise misdirected. Unless of course the hacker in question wants a name for themselves!

Mr. X might eventually have an MO on file if he keeps hitting the same Corp using the same methods (always uses that custom Ares the guards talk about, or a custom painted drone used to garner street cred). That would let them know that they have a repeat offender, but it still doesn't give them an address to hit from orbit to get rid of him.

The long and short of it is, without really giving the corp (or whatever target) a real reason to expend resources coming after you, then the average cautious runner could be believed melting back into the shadows, while still remaining nervous that maybe they left another piece this time, and over time the corp might have enough to act on. Time to get a new ID...

If you can get past the trolls and elves, believing the criminal underworld is still alive and kicking (in person and via remote) shouldn't be too difficult! wink.gif

Chris
Aaron
QUOTE (Derek)
Sure they can.  With a bit of DNA, and 2070's technology, they can almost surely make a good picture of what the person is like, probably about how old they are, whether they are an ork, troll, etc..., possibly even what they ate for dinner last night, if they got enough skin flakes and hair traces.  Just because someone doesn't have a SIN, doesn't mean they aren't in the system somewhere.

True, although I'd put forth that there is a difference between a description and an identity. Knowing what someone's DNA makes them look like doesn't tell you where to find them or what their name is. Heck, in a world where tattoos, whole-body dye, alterations in hair or eye color, tusk shaping, and even new body parts are relatively easy to obtain, knowing what someone's DNA makes them look like doesn't even necessarily tell you what they look like.

QUOTE
There are plenty of clues for any corporation and/or government to track down a criminal or runner, but getting access to all the pieces of data and clues takes plenty of time, and money, and unless the corp really wants to find the runner, they won't invest huge amounts of time or money.

Agreed. I figure, if a corp really really wanted to find a runner, they'd hire a runner. Which gives the target more of a fighting chance, since the hunter has the same resources (roughly) that the hunted does. Makes for a good plot hook, too.
Cheops
It doesn't cost a corporation millions of dollars to track down shadowrunners. It only costs them either a retainer fee to their "standby" shadow teams or else several thousand nuyen to a runner team that is slimy enough to take the job--and there will always be one willing to take the job. These are the people that sit there and look at the security footage and talk to the streets to track down the runners.

If you don't believe me then take a look at "Best Served Cold" the second SRM adventure. This one is official for SR (since it's used at tournaments) and the whole premise is that the team is hired to basically track down another team that pulled an extraction.

That being said, with the way that the matrix works now, any team with a hacker (or especially a technomancer) worth its salt should be able to destroy any security systems the team encounters and erase any trace. I just can't believe how easy the matrix is now.

However, if the team leaves behind DNA in large enough quantities or an astral signature they'd better be hiding behind double-digit Wards or else the security mages will get them.
Clyde
Another thing to recall is that these security systems are only as good as their maintenance.

The AAA zones of the mega rich will be able to track your every move, sure. The C zones will have a lot of places the cameras don't cover, and plenty of people will let a fake ID and cash slide by on expenses (paying your bills is one of the easiest ways for the authorities to find you). In a Z zone you won't have any trail at all.

Moreover, what would a corporation get by chasing you down? Sure, there's the rep effect; "you screw with Aztechnology and we'll eat your soul" but that's not a lot to go on. I mean, if they've had a shadowrun against them then obviously that ploy didn't work for them all the other times they did it!

Usually, the Shadowrunners have no idea who hired them. Sometimes they have know idea what they're stealing or destroying. Frequently they don't care. So even if the corp tracked down and arrested the runners, there'd be no way to make up their losses. Really, they'd just be throwing good money after bad.

I figure that the forensic stuff is of most use when the corporation actually catches a runner in the act! This way they can go into their incident files and beat you over the head with everything you've done in the past to them. And it's not necessarily a bad thing! If you go out of your way to avoid killing and torturing their employees and have done some pretty good quality professional work in the past they might be more inclined to hire you (albeit with a cortex bomb or some such). That'd beat getting shot in the neck and dumped in the sewers for the ghouls any day!
underaneonhalo
Good points on both sides, I've always ran it as unless corp-X got enough data to track you down in a matter of hours they'd probably let you slide with a profile on record. Seeing as within an hour you'll have dropped the goods off with Mr. Johnson and he'll be sleaving his way back to corp-Y with it, a better use of resources would be to get that team on retainer to try and intercept him. A decent hacker (which corp-X has a few of) could look at their major competitors recent transactions, and maybe even the transactions of a few Johnsons known to work for said competitors.

In the end it's all a matter of how you want to run your game really.
Vaevictis
At the risk of repeating what has already been said -- which I will do because it is important -- try to keep in mind that these days, corps pay for their own law enforcement.

They have to pay either their own internal security forces, Lone Star, or *someone* to track down security breaches. There is a real cash cost laid at the corp's feet for tracking down the runners and dealing with them once the job is complete. They have to weigh this real cash cost against the value gained by doing it.

A lot of people think that the whole Mr. Johnson system protects only the Johnsons; the thing is, it protects the Shadowrunners as well. If the runners don't know who they're working for, there is little value in trying to interrogate them for that information. And even if the runners know something about the Johnson, a competent Johnson will have intermediaries to act as buffers. Throw in the fact that the target often already knows exactly who stands to benefit from the run, often times the only value that a corp can derive from tracking down the runners is the whole "Don't mess with me" reputation factor.

There is also sometimes value in leaving the runners alone. If you kill them, more will just pop up. If you don't, then you now have a dossier on their capabilities, which can be useful in both defending against them in the future (better a known enemy than an unknown), and for selecting possible teams for your own runs at a later date.

There are certain circumstances in which a corp will definately need to respond to runners. Any runners that exhibit some kind of vendetta against a target are likely to find themselves targetted in return. Any runners that do one too many high profile, high value runs against any one target are likely to trigger a "Don't mess with me" response.

EDIT: By "high profile, high value", I mean stuff the corp can't cover up. The corps, being corps, won't want to admit that some Shadowrunners just caused 100 million nuyen worth of losses; the shareholders would frown on that, so the corps will try to bury it in the fine print. If the runners do a couple runs that the corp can't deny, the corp will be forced to move for appearance's sake.

And of course, sometimes, the executive with whom you f*cked with may just have anger issues, and you may have made yourself a high profile enemy who will mess with you when convenient or excusable in the line of his duties. (This is often more fun than crushing runners like bugs when they leave evidence behind -- the corp can't justify the expenditure, but the executive who gets dragged over the coals will remember and deliver payback whenever s/he can).

Ultimately, it's not suspension of disbelief. It's just a factor of the setting. Law and order are not important anymore. The corps are in charge, so cash is king.
ornot
I'd like to comment on the camera footage point. As has been suggested runners are likely to appear on cameras someplace, but the footage is not particularly likely to be linked with the run as there is so much to dredge through to find a possibly blurry image that might be the running team.

The exception to this is if the runners have done something really major. Consider the CCTV network in London. You literally can't get away from it, but this doesn't help control petty crime unless a perp has already been caught and the footage can be used to tie him to the crime. After the July 7th bombings however, the footage was scoured by an organised group of police officers to find the bombers every movement.

Another reason to avoid too much notoriety or public awareness.
Aaron
Vaevictis's post reminded me of another thing about the Sixth World. Even if, say, Wuxing wanted to pursue shadowrunners, they would (probably) have to leave Wuxing property to do it. Then there's an icky bureaucratic tangle called "jurisdiction" that comes into play.
Lilt
Hmm... If you are caught on camera all the way from your house to the run and back then in all likelyhood you're caught. If what you do shows-up on the corporate radar then they can have a hacker obtain the appropriate footage in a few seconds, maybe an hour if the runner's particularly evasive (dodging into non-surveyed areas and switching a nanopaste disguise ETC).

Still, I think this just hands another advantage to mages. An invisibility spell that's good enough to fool cameras isn't too hard to pull-off, and you can even check if you did it well enough with the camera on your commlink. There can only be a limited number of spirits and watcher spirits around, at-most (Cha*2)+1 per awakened character, but that's not going to be enough for a spirit at every street corner. Essentially, there are still shadows for people to slip away into, but probably only for mages.
Cheops
I think that just about any run that involves stealing a prototype and all files related to it or extracting key, non-replaceable people will result in an attempt by the corp to recover those assets. Basically, if it is irreplaceable and expensive (as any prototype or best-in-the-business scientist is going to be) then expect fast response.

As for jurisdiction that's just another reason to use shadowrunners against you. That's also why corps would be interested in keeping runners on retainer--to have a team in the area ready to go at a moment's notice.

"Dr. X just got extracted by a rival team. Mobilize your team to track them down and then call us in for backup. I'm sending you all the necessary files as we speak. It happened half an hour ago. Go!"
Geekkake
QUOTE (Cheops)
I think that just about any run that involves stealing a prototype and all files related to it or extracting key, non-replaceable people will result in an attempt by the corp to recover those assets. Basically, if it is irreplaceable and expensive (as any prototype or best-in-the-business scientist is going to be) then expect fast response.

Thing is, any intelligent shadowrunner offloads their score ASAP. So it no longer makes sense to go after the runners after a bit of legwork reveals they passed it off the to J already. To the establishment as a whole, shadowrunners are worthless, and thus, not worth paying attention to.
Lilt
QUOTE (Geekkake @ Jul 14 2006, 10:29 PM)
Thing is, any intelligent shadowrunner offloads their score ASAP. So it no longer makes sense to go after the runners after a bit of legwork reveals they passed it off the to J already. To the establishment as a whole, shadowrunners are worthless, and thus, not worth paying attention to.

Yeah. I'm surprised corps even hire security in the first place. nyahnyah.gif

The thing is that runners know things. Runners can say who they got the contract throug hand describe mr J. They can probably even give the corp a picture of him, and through that the company can figure-out how to get their gear/scientist back.
Abbandon
I think they have injected to much reality into it. Having to make such an effort to stay in the shadows is a pain in the ass.

They say everything is all high tech and you can be tracked 50 different ways from sunday but take a step back and look at the big picture. I dont see shadworunning slowing down one bit.

I think they would devote most of their security bucks on prevention instead of tracking.
HappyDaze
QUOTE
The thing is that runners know things. Runners can say who they got the contract throug hand describe mr J. They can probably even give the corp a picture of him, and through that the company can figure-out how to get their gear/scientist back.


This is one big reason why some of the best Johnsons are just squatters with a personafix and datalock/kink bomb installed. You now have a one-use expendable Johnson that will self-destruct following completion of his mission. This expendable Johnson has his information (limited to only what he needs to know) hardwired in, and his only connection to the real employers is through the matrix.

Hey, if runners need to be paranoid, then corps do too!
HappyDaze
It might be possible for corps to abduct a faceless bum and get the same mods installed along with the needed skillwires and skillsofts to create an "instant disposable runner" for when they need a totally deniable asset for a few nuyen.gif more than typical runner rates. This makes gunbunny runners especially replaceable.

Of course, runners with cash can do this too to build their stable of redshirts.
Samaels Ghost
Redshirts?
James McMurray
Tons of episodes of the original Star Trek had teams of 3-4 main characters and one lower ranking nobody. These teams would go into dangerous situations and the nobody (whose rank dictated he wear a red shirt) would get killed.
Samaels Ghost
Oh yeah! I should have known that. hehe
Shrike30
EDIT: whoops, 2 pages, not just 1.
Apathy
Just a couple thoughts about forensic evidence:
    Fingerprints: Never happens if they're wearing gloves. If they aren't wearing them, then the newbies deserve what they get.
    DNA: Sure, the runners shed hair and skins cells every minute of the day, but so does every other corp employee that walks through the area. It's not worth trying to perform individual DNA tests on each of the 5,000 skin cells found in the room, and cross-reference each of them against the employee database, in the hopes that you might find one or more non-matches. Most of the time, the only sample worth running DNA on is blood - it's easy to associate with the runners. This is why my group always kept a squeeze-bottle of bleach handy to destroy the evidence. Also, it really brings home the argument that if successful runs are the ones where shots aren't even fired and no one knows you were there.
Emrak
I'll second the "organizations don't play well together" sentiment. Corps do not keep Shadowrunner teams on retainer. This is silly and defeats the whole purpose. There do exist corp security, but they lack any authority outside of corp territory. Once a shadowrunning team gets away, that's it. They won. The corp (typically a megacorp) would have to admit to the Seattle authorities that someone broke in and did this-or-that and give them the forensic evidence. A megacorp is NOT going to lose face like that. It's a silent, cold war.

They could send in a corporate security team to catch the team, but the corp would then be committing a godawful amount of felonies and violate international borders AND be called to the Global Corporate Court to explain their actions. Hell, sending a corp security team into Seattle to apprehend/kill Seattle citizens (SINless or not) is tantamount to a declaration of war against the UCAS.

I'd definitely agree that the vast majority of runs against corp x never get reported to lone star. The benefit? Maybe (MAYBE) Lone Star will catch them someday. The drawbacks? Everyone and their uncle knows that corp x has been looted and the runners got away. More light is drawn to typically clandestine aspects of a corp. And last but not least, who do you want to work with? A company that gets robbed periodically or a company that never gets robbed (aka, never reports it)? Reporting runs is negative PR. How a good megacorp would handle the situation is to continuously run silent, faceless shadowruns against other corps and bulk up their security to counter such against themselves.

Once again, it's a silent, cold war.

Company is not a mega corp? Big deal if Lone Star has your pic, your dna, and your favorite food. They still have to find you. IIRC, even in this day and age, something like 75% of all crimes are unsolved. As technology gets better, so do criminals. I see no reason to think that that would change at all in a dark future where vast chunks of the population aren't even officially "in the system."
Smokeskin
Use (and invent) countermeasures for all these attempts at IDing the runners.

Faces are concealed behind masks or disguises.
Gloves prevent fingerprints (or leave someone elses even).
Smear a nano-gel all over you that makes dead skin cells and body hairs stick so they don't fall off (besides, no-one is going to sample all the dust in area for that, unless it's under a victim's fingernails or something no one will bother).
Inject themselves with a virus that lays dormant in their blood, upon exposure to air it activates, infecting blood cells and scrambling the DNA inside, leaving no trace even if they get shot.
Scoop up some dust from the corner of your favorite scumbag slash ganger bar and dump it at the crime scene, with the skin cells from 100s of people they'll give up.
Run a limited personafix chip that alters the gait so this can't be recognized.
One of the old SR books had a disinfect spell, AoE that destroyed all biological evidence, have the mage learn that.
Dropping a few white phospherous grenades also does wonders for elimiting trace evidence.
Hacking can do all sorts of things, from beaming agents at every security device in sight to hanging around the crime scene investigation and hacking their scanners to just deleting it from their databases (organisations also exist that specialize in this, typically offering reduced rates if you can wait until they got enough jobs for the same database that they can pool jobs).
Bribes or threats can stop all sorts of investigations.

Witness
Idea for new bioware:

GeneFlux skin. Epithelial cell genomes are modified with a viral symbiote similar to that used in gene therapy. The self-sustaining virus keeps certain key genetic markers in a state of random genomic flux, thus preventing DNA fingerprinting (and ritual magic using hair/skin samples?). Requires regular medical maintenance, as things can go so horribly wrong if unchecked. Nevertheless this is a popular treatment in shadowclinics.
Slump
Another rather nasty thing to do is to get in contact with your organ legging buddies (I know you have one) and set yourself up with a new hand every once in a while. Heck, to be really mean, have your fingers all come from different people. Try to trace those fingerprints!
Grinder
Why not use a cyberhand? It would hardly leave fingerprints.
Teux
I've always felt that fingerprint evidence would be pretty useless in 2070.

I mean, if I can hack off my arm and get it replaced with metal, how hard would it be to just scrape the skin off all my fingers and replace it with some that grows in a different pattern?

Even DNA evidence could be suspicious, with genetic therapy becoming common. I'm no biologist, but wouldn't extensive gene therapy change your overall DNA? I know that current genetic fingerprinting compares the length of microsatellites and their repeating pattern, but I'm not sure if genetic treatments like leonization would significantly alter them.

Even with this evidence, the extraterritoriality of so many corporations combined with the fragmented goverments of the 6th world make not getting caught a lot easier than one might think. Just encourage your players to use a little caution and carry a dustbuster and a mop...
Witness
Current DNA fingerprinting works with a pallette of different 'markers', each of which is an otherwise unimportant location of the genome (usually) where there is rapid sequence variation- usually in 'microsatellite' repeat length.

If you know which markers are being used, it ought to be possible with SR technology to alter some of those markers- just enough to prevent an automated statistical match- without affecting anything else (though there's always a risk!)

I rule that such treatments are relatively straightforward in SR, but you'd have to undergo them after every few jobs to be sure. The GeneFlux treatment (bit of a misnomer actually, but nevermind) would be continuous and reminds me of what various parasites do to avoid immune responses, so I like the idea.

I don't know how 'leonization' is supposed to work- there may be some telomere rebuilding involved but that wouldn't be enough on its own. At any rate I'm not sure it would have an overlapping effect.

I wouldn't have thought it would be at all difficult to alter/fake normal fingerprints- to the extent that I agree they might not even be useful in forensics anymore.
Charon
Some good ideas here.

I might have a street doctor offer PCs a ''Ghost Package'' in which they get to change some or all of their biometrics.

If you take the geneflux treatment, we throw in a fingerprint alteration for free! Offer available for a limited time only.

It's great. It increases a bit the suspension of disbelief about how runner are so hard to track and it get rids the PC of some extra cash.

It allows you to pay them a bit more, making them feel like big shot, without changing the amount of available spending money. wink.gif
Witness
Yeah. 'Ghost package'. I like that a lot!
Samaels Ghost
How much would a complete database wipe run for?
How bout that gene therapy treatment?
Moon-Hawk
Well, the SINner flaw is worth 5 BP. That's worth 25,000:nuyen:. Flaws cost how much to buy off after character creation? 2xBP in karma, right? 50,000:nuyen:, then? Sound reasonable?
Samaels Ghost
That's pretty good! why not....
Moon-Hawk
Of course, double the cost if you're trying to get a criminal SIN erased, since that will be in more databases, more secure databases, and cost more in bribes.
Samaels Ghost
What exactly is entailed in a Criminal SIN? My runners were part of a plot that got them and other runners faces plastered all over the news. Some corp guy set up a ambush for them and let law enforcement bid on the info to nab the runners involved. Most escaped as the ambush didn't go down as expected, but info on the escapees were leaked to the press and a few of my runners now have a lot of attention thrown their way. I figure that they would be overcharged for any Database Wiping that they may have to go through to get their info out of the hands of major law enforcement. Considering all this, would my runners have Criminal SINs? I figured that they would have substantial criminal profiles and most of their Fake SINs busted, but would evidence collected into a Criminal profile have the same effect (or worse) as having a Criminal SIN?
Smokeskin
I don't like the gene options. The geneflux allows runners never to care about their genetic traces ever again, and the option of going to doc and getting new finger prints, a new face and a new genetic profile allows a surefire escape.

Make the runners plan and prepare. Force them to take precautions not to leave traces behind, because it will have consequences that they can't just necessarily buy their way out of.

It gives you a great tool as a GM too. If they screw up and the wrong people end up with their DNA, well there you have a new adventure (finding dirt on the investigative officer or some such).

Or use it to punish the players if they screw up, and let the "price" vary depending on that. If they just failed a roll, let there be a crooked cop easy to buy off. If they were stupid, they might need to place themselves in debt to some bad men (that may want other services than nuyen) to get them off the hook.
Witness
I disagree. Players will still plan and prepare- but they'll focus on the interesting things, like how to stay alive, how to get through the door etc. What they won't have to do is go absolutely batshit paranoid and burn or bleach every single thing that they come into contact with. That stuff isn't fun, it's OTT, unrealistic and repetitively procedural.
The ghost package allows you to arm wave that kind of behaviour away and allows the players to worry about more interesting stuff instead. They may still get caught on camera or followed or identified in some other way, and they may still end up having to blackmail or bribe or owe favours. None of that needs to go away. It's just the bleach-and-burn strategy that disappears.
Smokeskin
I guess it depends on what sort of campaign you want to run. If you don't want to bother with getting tracked, then introducing some piece of 'ware that deals with it (or let civil rights laws protect against it) is a good idea.

It isn't unrealistic - I don't let forensics vacuum a room and run a DNA profile on every piece of dust. The blood from a gunshot wound will be sampled though, and if there's been a murder or something very valuable stolen, they'll be combing the place for hairs and fibers and looking for skin residue on anything the runners have been in rough contact with, if they think they can plausibly link the evidence to the crime.

It isn't repetitive - Just like the PCs maintain their firearms, reload their clips, recharge their electronics and all sorts of other stuff that everyone assumes they do without actually having to tell the GM they do it, so before a covert run they smear themselves in skincell-retaining nanogel and inject themselves with an air-activated DNA-scrambling virus as a standard procedure.

In fact, it is the opposite of repetitive - most of the time it isn't an issue, but it gives you another option of removing them from their element (like taking away their guns, their 'ware, their magic, their matrix access). Due to a series of unforeseen events, the runners might find themselves in a situation where they could easily fight their way out, but their blood is unscrambled so they can't afford getting hit (or at least leaving any blood behind). Or a civilian just scratched one of the runners, getting trace DNA under her nails, and is just about to speed off in her car - do they shoot her before she makes off or take the time and risk to track her down, do they just clean her hand or simply chop it off?

Witness
Well you don't have to make the geneflux stuff available to your players- it might be too expensive for them or just too restricted. Really it's just a more expensive more permanent alternative to cheaper options like your nanogel or the DNA-scrambling virus (eek- how badly could that one go wrong?). Something for them to save up for.
And it could introduce fun side-plots of its own, such as a clinic doing the geneflux badly (or even not at all!), having unpleasant side effects crop up, etc.

I guess the bottom line is that I can see forensics getting pretty advanced by the SR era (fast efficient DNA scanners etc), but inevitably there'll be an arms race and it makes sense that shadowrunners and other criminals will be coming up with countertechnologies so that forensic tech doesn't make their lives completely impossible.
Charon
1 - As far as realism goes, it shouldn't be a surprise that forensics and Criminals don't escape the arms race syndrome. This geneflux stuff, alteration of finger print or even retina imprint and voice pattern is less far fetched than half the stuff on the bioware list. I mean, toughening the skin so it provides armor bonus? Yeah, that's far fetched. But it's SR.

2 - It's not because you can get away with it that you have to become careless. A PC who leaves traces everywhere he goes might have to undergo plastic surgery and biometrics modification more than once a year whereas a careful runner might need to do it twice in his career. As long as the cost for this stuff is established at a reasonable but not negligeable level, you still have an incentive to remain careful. It's sort of a tax on carelessness that encourage basic precautions without making it the point of the game. It's the tactical issues that are fun to plan for, not the forensics one. It is a well known fact that it is basically impossible to interact with a crime scene without leaving some evidence so I don't like PCs going apeshit on this aspect of the game. Just try not to bleed on the floor but know that if you do it ain't the end of your career, there are means to deal with it. Now to plot the assassination of Senator Brackhaven...

Being a SINless runner means that none of this forensics stuff is likely to lead to your immediate capture anyway so I feel that Runner should focus on not getting caught in the act. Not getting tracked comes second and not giving the investigator enough to build a case against you comes last by a fair margin. So the amount of detail and roleplaying time dedicated to each of these aspects should be proportionate. I'm not saying ''Should be ignored''. But proportionate.

Ask your PCs what they like the most about SR. If they tell you worrying about forensics, then by all means never include something like GeneFlux (Witness inc TM) or even fingerprint alteration bioware but somehow I doubt it'll be their answer.
Cardul
While you guys look at the evidence...I think about this:

1) When all is said and done, all the corps use Shadowrunners. Say The runners jack some prototype from Novatech...and they get away, and make the drop...Is Novatech going to continue going after them? Really..why should it? It has identified a team of runners that it could use in the future, after all...

2) In many cases, the Corps are doing something that could be considered illegal. Arms shipments, bio-chemical weapons/experimentation, human experimentation. Why would a Corp involve the local law enforcement going after the runners when they will have to tell the authorities what was stolen.

3) Corporate Extraction Runs are common things...Would you want to hire a new team of runners to do an extraction? Or a team you know has beaten your own security in the past?

4) Let's face it..only minor corps have their fate rest on one, two, or even a dozen projects. For every prototype, scientist, or what-have-you stolen, the Corp has PLENTY other things going on. The cost of tracking down and apprehending the runners is generally going to be higher then the investment they already lost on the project the runners stole. Only MAJOR projects are going to risk get the runners fragged for interfereing with..and even then, those projects are monolithic things where there are so many people working on them, that, really, one runner team will, again, most likely only set it back..

5) Finally, what corp would not take the data of how the runners breached its security and use it to better their security and keep the same breaches from happening again?

All, in all...the reason the Corps don't go actively hunting Shadowrunners is not that it is difficult to track down the runners..but instead that it is inconvenient and costly to track them down, so they generally choose not to.
Witness
QUOTE (Cardul)
1) When all is said and done, all the corps use Shadowrunners. Say The runners jack some prototype from Novatech...and they get away, and make the drop...Is Novatech going to continue going after them? Really..why should it? It has identified a team of runners that it could use in the future, after all...

Um. Whether it wants to kill them or hire them, it still wants to know who they were, surely?

QUOTE (Cardul)
2) In many cases, the Corps are doing something that could be considered illegal. Arms shipments, bio-chemical weapons/experimentation, human experimentation. Why would a Corp involve the local law enforcement going after the runners when they will have to tell the authorities what was stolen.

Yeah this is a reason why the cops might not get involved, but in that case the Corps get involved in their place, and they'll still use forensics to figure out who hit them.

QUOTE (Cardul)
3) Corporate Extraction Runs are common things...Would you want to hire a new team of runners to do an extraction? Or a team you know has beaten your own security in the past?

Same as point 1.

QUOTE (Cardul)
4) Let's face it..only minor corps have their fate rest on one, two, or even a dozen projects. For every prototype, scientist, or what-have-you stolen, the Corp has PLENTY other things going on.  The cost of tracking down and apprehending the runners is generally going to be higher then the investment they already lost on the project the runners stole. Only MAJOR projects are going to risk get the runners fragged for interfereing with..and even then, those projects are monolithic things where there are so many people working on them, that, really, one runner team will, again, most likely only set it back..

So for minor projects they call the cops and the cops deal with it? I'm not sure actually. See my last point below.

QUOTE (Cardul)
5) Finally, what corp would not take the data of how the runners breached its security and use it to better their security and keep the same breaches from happening again?

Yeah I'm sure in many cases they would. Of course sooner or later people get slack again and the security holes open back up. Not sure how this relates to your point, though.

QUOTE (Cardul)
All, in all...the reason the Corps don't go actively hunting Shadowrunners is not that it is difficult to track down the runners..but instead that it is inconvenient and costly to track them down, so they generally choose not to.

I don't know if you've noticed but most shops like to make a big deal about prosecuting shoplifters, even if the cost of the goods was tiny. The reason being that they don't want to look like chumps who are ripe for the robbing. And if you're an exec you may (desperately) want to prove to bosses or shareholders that you can make good after you messed up. For a SR corporation cost and inconvenience are nothing when weighed against pride and reputation, IMO.
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