Our SOP was to never travel with the package if we could avoid it. For anything small, we used an aerial courier drone based on the little blimp thing. It was pretty hard to track and kept us from getting caught red-handed on several occasions. We sometimes stored it in the trunk of our plain old Ford Americar.

Handing the problem to Johnson is quick route to Notoriety. People are not going to want to hire someone that brings a mess right to them.

That assumption is neither supported by RAW nor canon.

So what? I've already established that I think the canon of SR is crap. However, I'm not sure where you think any given playstyle is going to be covered in the RAW. There are no rules for style, silly man.

That's great.
Just irrelevant to a discussion where canon is the basis.

You might want to check the character generation chapter of your book.

Even better - start at the beginning. Around where it establishes the way the world ticks for SR as a basic asspumption... so one can play runners at all.

I've heard the rationale 'Why should there be runners, corporate man are all the corps need' too many times. The answer is simple: Because otherwise, there would be no game 'Shadowrun'.

The operative part of that statement is you think. It's pretty clear that what you think isn't carrying much weight with anyone here, and when you pass of a statement like "The corps do not care, blah blah blah" you're representing your optional world that you're been advocating here as though it is the correct and single truth.

You represent it as if it is the right way and that what someone else derives from cannon is the wrong way. So you cannot go back and say well, this is all because I think cannon is crap. You're the only one here who thinks that. So basically you're assuming facts not in evidence.

You say things like: This is the way it is. That is the way it is. It is pointless for you to argue that here because we're talking about Shadowrun you're talking about HappyRun where corps are all knowing and all powerful and can eradicate shadowrunners at a whim, so therefore shadowrunners don't exist.

Once again, this is a personal statement you are attempting to use to prove your pont, would you consider not doing that in the future? Calling someone silly may be much less offensive than saying somone can't get laid, but it's no less ad hominem, and should be avoided for the same reason. Again I apologize to the moderators if I'm oversteping my bounds by pointing that out.

He was clarifying his position in response to Ravor's paraphrasing of HappyDaze's position. You can't say "your position is wrong because your position wrong". That's just circular reasoning. It's also inappropriate to quote "cannon material" as a reasoning because it is what's known as a "First Principle" and only works when all parties agree to accept the first principle as a given truth. Since HappyDaze has already challenged two of those principles (genre, canon), quoting them as evidence/points really doesn't help the conversation (because you're going to be called to defend them from HappyDaze's earlier challenges).

HappyDaze needs to be allowed to re-express his points as much as he needs to so that he doesn't get accused later of contradicting himself. If you want to refute his opinion or interpretation, refute HappyDaze's evidence of supporting that position, or introduce evidence to the contrary.

The above quote is really just saying "your non-canon stuff is wrong because it isn't canon", which isn't an appropriate reply to "the canon stuff is wrong".

---

Also: some notes on "style":

While I disagree on many things HappyDaze has discussed in this thread (including his core premises), I think the accusations that his "style" is not canon (ala, not "Shadowrun") is wrong. Those that are accusing his style of being wrong are only quoting a lack of evidence to the contrary, which, in turn, is not evidence.

Further, there is evidence to support some of what HappyDaze is saying. Much of the fluff in the corebook (don't have the book at the moment to quote page numbers), supports the idea that the world is harsh for shadowrunners, challenging "the man" is very risky and very dangerous, and that Lone Star has incredible resources at their disposal. Further, there is talk that there is increasing policial pressure on Lone Star in 2070 Seattle to really, really, prove themselves before they lose the Seattle contract to Knight Errant or somebody. Even if Shadowrunning was relatively safe in the past (which I don't buy from a reading of the core rulebook's fluff), the implication is that it just got a whole lot more deadly.

If the fluff tells you "this is the way the world works" and then the rules give you a system "superior NPCs, etc" to make the world that way, I think the "canon" idea is that the GM will utilize these tools to build his world in a way that is roughly outlined by the fluff. Any deviation in that is house rules, including the implication that has been proposed that AA corps won't want Lone Star involved in perusing Shadowrunners.

All of it sounds good except the part of warding the getaway car. Wards are noticeable in astral space, and if you're one of the only ones exiting with a big glowing ward, this foils your attempt to remain unnoticed.

There's also the problem that wards are exclusive. As I interpret 'intersect', you cannot have one ward completely contained within another ward (see Street Magic, page 124). This means no warded car inside of a warded garage. It also means the corps can't ward a strongbox in a warded room within a warded building. They could ward rooms (and elevators) individually if there is no larger macro-ward on the structure.

He challenged that, too, way back in the beginning when he talked about keeping the rules but making changes to the setting and the way the world "works". So there would be a game, Shadowrun.

Which one has to do because his views are being attacked. His position is one where he now has the responsibility to defend those views. If you want him to stop, you (we all, collectively, as a group) simply have to stop saying "the world as is makes sense and you just don't know it". I don't think any of us are willing to do that because we know he's wrong... and on we go.

No, technically you are. The canon is a fact. Canon exist. It's in print. We all have it. But it's not currently "evidence" for this debate unless both parties accept it as such. Since the argument is all about whether HappyDaze is right in his flawed assumptions, the basic underlying assumptions he is working with count a lot more than whatever basic assumptions you (we all) are working with unless you can prove that your assumptions are somehow "better" than his, using the criteria by which he defends his assumptions as evidence.

Read the paragraph quoted above. It basically says, "You cannot disagree with canon just because you don't like it." That seems like a good reason to disagree to me. You also go on to say, "You're the only one whose using the facts you propose in this debate, therefore they are not valid." You can't dismiss someone's points just because they disagree with yours (or even everybody elses). Go ahead, please. Read those last two sentences again. He's wrong just because he's the only one who thinks something? Never.

The ward may reside entirely within the vehicle. Solid objects obscure in astral, so the ward would be invisible compared to the outside of the vehicle.

Remember a ward is a thing, it has an anchor, but the anchor is not necessarily the walls you're forming the ward to protect. The ward itself must be a simple geometric shape, so cornforming it to the walls of a car which is inherrently a non simple geometric shape is impossible.

Can I now point out that your position on wards is against cannon and that a warded car does not glow in the astral or will you claim that cannon is still inapplicable to HappyRun?

Let me cut this down for you:
[I] think... the correct and single truth.
Since it's my views on a fictional world, I can certainly view it through whatever lens I wish, and I've offered you a peek. You're welcome for that.

No. I have said it's not right for me and I deliver all points from my own perspective.

Facts in a fictional world? No, I'm presenting opinions and my perspective. You may not like it - just a hunch - but I can still put it forward.

You're too kind!

OK, to be fair, there are a few others that seem to be thinking too. For many though, it seems like they all want to come and kick the dissenter around secure that they are in the popular majority.

I'd prefer to keep the rules discussion seperate from the canon setting discussion. Rules do not make canon (it's one 'c' there buddy), and I've already said I like the rule system.

You appear to be correct regarding the shape, so I have to ask: do you use a small regular shape within the vehicle (which may not cover everyone inside the vehicle) or do you go for a larger ward that extends past (some) boundaries of the vehicle? The latter is probably a lot easier and has the advantage of protecting the entire vehicle but it does compromise astral stealth.

Have you given any additional thought to my posts arguing the merits of freelancers vs. corporate divisions and what decisions might be involved from the corporate viewpoint?

What about Ravor's points that the demand for freelance talent would be incredibly huge and not just limited to those few CEOs and executives with the authority and resources to issue commands to their local corporate division?

The latter may not be possible since the ward requires relative stability. If the ward extends past its reference frame it may collapse. This is not clear in the rules, or the faq answer which changed them.

Not so much. But see below. It touches on an evolution to my ideas that this thread has inspired.

This goes to my further fleshed-out mention of the 'little leagues' by which organized crime and others hire the independents for small stuff. I just see a sharp distinction between these jobs and the the high-end covert ops that corp teams would be doing. Sure, you'd have freelancers, but not ones that threaten the corps own zeroes.

It may not be, but the only thing the rules state is that the anchor needs to be stable (such as a bobblehead doll on the dash). I probably wouldn't allow for this, but it's certainly a possible interpretation.

This view ignores that this idea was proposed to challenge your earlier assumption: that freelancers would be restricted to 'little leagues'. You basically said that the reason freelancers couldn't stand up to corps was because they would be inferior, lacking resources compared to corp teams.

However, if the demand for freelancers is justified, suddenly freelancers have extensive resources again and there is no assurance that such freelancers couldn't contend with corporate teams.

Then this goes into my previous points, as this cycle continues, the freelancers actually develop extraordinary advantages over corp teams including speed (a new enemy doesn't have to wait to develop his own corporate teams), flexibility (do a few runs or do a lot and never over-extend your resources), SOTA (it's cheaper and easier for smaller teams to stay ahead of SOTA rather than making upgrades to whole departments), experience (increased demand leads to increased skill and specialization), and cost efficiency (a combination of all the others plus additional points mentioned previously).

In the corporate world, everything is run by the principle of economic demand. Once you allow the fact that there's a demand for freelance services, all sorts of funny things happen and the old ideas of how to do things just get outdated.

No, that would be the game 'Guttercrawl'.

the problem here is that the first 80% or thereabouts (in some cases more) of the power curve is actually pretty inexpensive compared to the last 20%, and is usually much more significant imo.

for example, it's not all that hard to wind up with 3 IPs. agility 7 is not too hard, either. almost maxed-out reaction is right in there with 3 IPs.

and the difference between 3 IPs (what the 'minor leagues' sammy should have) and 4 IP (the only improvement possible for your 'major leagues' sammies to have) is not even remotely close to the difference between 1 IP and 2 IPs, let alone 1 IP as compared to 3.

the major league sammies may have 9 or 10 agility, and 6 dice in their gun skill (plus a reflex recorder), but they are likely only throwing 3, maybe 4 dice more than their minor league counterparts.

furthermore, with their (comparatively) limited resources, these minor league teams are still definitely a threat to military or police forces, and neither of them are going to be eager to chase them down. it is not an easy task to hunt down these 'minor league' runners, who have a good amount of experience at what they are doing, and are probably reasonably well equipped.

furthermore, if the only reason your corporate teams are working for you is because they have no choice, you aren't going to get nearly as much out of them. they won't go the extra mile. they just don't really care about it's success or failure. and why would they not go to someone else? what's the worst thing that can happen? they are already basically slaves to the current corp, what's the next corp gonna do that's worse? so if they take a chance with a shadow clinic to try and gain their freedom, and end up someone else's toy but fail, they are still in the same situation, no worse off. (unlikely, imo... many shadow clinics will have ties to the crime organisations instead of the corps, and the crime organisations want access to the top talent as much as the corps do, and so would work to insure independant runners are available)

especially considering that if your corp zeroes are initially recruited from the minors, then your zeroes are, by definition, going to have lots of connections to the minor league shadows, and probably the various crime syndicates.

if you go with the corp born and bred idea that was brought up earlier as an alternate, then you either end up with the same problems as drones (not very imaginative, won't take initiative, doesn't really think, won't attack targets of opportunity, etc) or else you end up with independant thinkers who resent being owned, and are no better than freelance runners who have been forcefully recruited.

imo, the top end of the 'minor leagues' is not as far away from the 'major leagues' as you seem to think it is.

I guess I see it differently. To use a RL example, I don't imagine Dog the Bounty Hunter (a small fry in my opinion) hunting down Osama bin Laden or any high profile criminal for that matter. No matter how much Dog does, he's not goiing to get the high tech toys the CIA and military have (not that thye have helped in getting Osama...).

Using this line of thinking, why don't all of the cops & military have that level of enhancement? Availability numbers would certainly need to go up since the corps would want to keep the good stuff in house. Things that are easy for runners to get in the standard setting (such as Wired Reflexes 2) would be much harder to get in the world I see.

And which of these would best describe elite special forces and spies in the world today? Patriotism to a government and loyalty to a shadowrun megacorp (which has its own citizenship) isn't too different.

Again, comparisons between corporations and governments really aren't very apt. Governments need to spend extraordinary amounts of funding to complete small-time goals. Why? Because politicians want to get re-elected. If they lose the election and the next guy gets an economy that's shot straight to hell, then that's good because you come across looking good (completing your goals) and your opposing party comes off as being incompetent and destroying the economy. We see this all the time in all sorts of countries, especially since economic problems could take months or years before anyone really notices or does anything about it.

That's problem 1 why the analogy fails. The other problem is that it's inappropriate to compare shadowrunners to military. Shadowrunenrs are, at best, paramilitary. They are a single squad and have squad-based objectives.

A better anology would be, if the CIA needs a hit done on the President of X country, do they send crack CIA operatives or hire one of their experienced freelancers who has performed high-profile hits all over the world? I could see a case for both.

Have any stories form your live action playtesting that you want to share with us?

neither of those is much like how spies and operatives are recruited.

recruited from the minors forcibly because they don't have any sense of patriotism.

born and bred because you don't want someone who stands out as being obviously a spy, and because you don't just grab anybody. don't get me wrong, if you train someone from their childhood, they can be very good at what they do, but 'very good' is what the top levels of the minor leagues are. you need the absolute best ones possible. so do you raise millions of SINless kids somehow, give them all training, and hope they don't somehow draw the attention of human rights groups who deliver a flaming pile of dogpoop on your front door along with some really really bad publicity (i mean, would you buy stuff from a corp that literally practises slavery and starts brainwashing their soldiers/operatives from birth? the damage to the corp's public image would be staggering). additionally, let's say one in a thousand turns out to be what you need: right kind of personality, natural aptitude for shadowrunning, independant thinker yet somehow perfectly loyal, etc. what do you do with the other 999? make soylent green? where do you hide the training facilities? if you don't kill off the failures (hey look, more bad press, yay!), then they have to go somewhere. if you suddenly bust out an army of SINless people, then that's not exactly unnoticeable. it's going to lead to investigations into where that army came from, and that, as i mentioned, leads to bad publicity. if your 20 teams are requiring you to train 200,000 troops to get to that point, then your costs are gonna be awful high. and they had better be legitimately loyal, or you are no better off than using your forced zeroes anyways... you cannot expect your corp teams to have access to the wireless matrix (kind of important for a hacker, and since it's so cheap and easy to be a hacker in addition to your main job, i rather doubt they wouldn't cross train to keep everyone at least somewhat useful) and somehow still believe all the lies you may wish to feed them.

as was mentioned, it absolutely makes sense that corps have their own black ops teams, but it equally makes sense that these are going to be recruited the normal way, and will possess valid SINs. they won't be forced to work for the corp, they will work for the corp because they are paid and paid well for their abilities.

and what do corps do for all the minor shadowruns they need? do they keep enough in their private stable to handle all the little stuff, or do they freelance that out? if they give it to freelancers, then that just creates even more work for the freelancers.

I'll take that post as the usual 'I can't make up any semi-plausible arguments anymore - so I'm resorting to personal attacks'. Kinda boring.

Anyways, no.
Black Lagoon is fun to watch, though.

Why is your line playful banter and mine is viewed as an attack? Thin skins...

So, is this an "attack", or an actual show/movie/cartoon? This is a sincere question.

Because there is a difference between attacking a person and attacking an argument.

Your argument bases on your views that see freelancers only at the (low) street level, doing the work the syndicates don't want to do themselves.
As this is a significant change to the Shadowrun setting, I merely pointed out tongue-in-cheek that such a game isn't really called Shadowrun anymore.

Is it really that hard to punch Black Lagoon into Wikipedia?

Ah. I was uncertain if 'Guttercrawl' was a serious reference. I see that you were attempting humor. Perhaps we should both speak moor plainly.

You brought the outside reference in - I figured you could clerar it up best to prevent any misunderstandings (such as that whole Guttercrawl thing).

I forgot about the new no wards within wards rule.

Can still work however if you park the vehicle under a building through which you access. Ward the building separately from the car. Hope that the mage/spirit is too stupid to check underneath.

Use a hired mage to ward the vehicle. That way it doesn't have the same astral signature as the team mage. Even if they do find the vehicle they may not make the link immediately (they will later) giving you time to escape.

Also, there was the rest of my statement. The mage that they are tailing--the one who's signature they know--leaves first. So they pick up the trail with him again once he leaves. Everyone else stays behind for a while to let the trackers get far enough away and then leaves.

Of course this assumes a play style where corps have no right to surveillance and arrest off of corporate territory and that the security mages that are following aren't licensed private eyes.

[humor] I like speaking Gaul plainly. Sometimes Hun plainly works too, though. [/humor]

On a slightly serious note though, let's all try to chill out a little. From the looks of things nobody is out and out trying to flame anyone else, which is good. There are a few jabs here and there, and Fisty already warned you all about that, so please try and leave them out.

Now back to your regularly scheduled conversation.

It's one we keep with pretty stictly to keep things fropm gettin silly. Generally, this works out in favor of the runners - they usually are the ones busting through wards rather than hiding behind them after all.

This is an excellent idea. Rather than parking under the building, you might just have a tunnel that takes you to another garage nearby. It's even possible that this is already done for you in public areas with lots of parking structures.

If bin Ladin was known to be near Dog, you bet your ass Dog would at least consider picking up that bounty.

Because it would cost too much to equipe and train the full military in their new bio/cyberware.

How many people in the US military? 1 000 000 plus?

It is reasonable to assume that they would equipe their special forces, and probably a select group from the regular forces.


On a side note, a lot of the minor leaguers in my games (small security corps, gangers, etc...) use combat drugs to help even things out.

HappyDaze,

It seems illogical to me for you too use that loyalty argument of special forces, when you have stated that in your reality, there are no shadowrunners, just corp Zeros.

How do you reconcile both views in your reality?

Or are you saying that the corps have both, Zeros and elite squads? If so, how does that work?

As the GM of your game, you are right in your game. So far the SR4 game world is populated by PCs(who are canon mandated to be different from those presented in the rules as long the players are experienced) and those NPCs presented in SR4 and Street Magic, anything that you or I care to create are non-canon. If your runners are doing high stakes, if you are running a game as canon as possible, you'd be using the canon NPCs. You can create Prime Runners - but there are no canon Prime Runners as yet. There may be exceptional people but apart from the PCs, there are no canon exceptional people.

To take your D&D example. If Drizzt wasn't officially statted, he is non-canon. There may be still be Drizzt but until WOTC decides to release his stats, he is non--canon.

Well, once again let me just say that you're wrong. I won't bother to attack you, but I sure you feel good down there in your moral lowground. I do hope you little person manage somehow.

I don't think this argument has any merit.
You are comparing apples to oranges.

From what I understand in your version of SR, the Corps would be the equivalent of the US and their allies in their attempts to get Osama.
So, this example seems to actually hurt your arguments that the Corps can automatically squash any freelancers. They have to be able to find them.



If there are "minor league" shadowrunners in your version (and they seem to have made a sudden appearance), how do the Corps "know" when to destroy them, what triggers the change from minor to major leagues?

Well, that's a glaringly obvious question. The answer is of course NPC access to the omniscient GMs brain.

That has got to be one of the most inspiring things I've ever read! I now feel sooo superior in my intellect. I have achieved the extraordinary simply by using the tool (SR4) given to me to do what it says to do - that is, I can follow directions. To see that another poster here cannot do this just tells me how far the masses have fallen!

They haven't made a sudden appearance so much as they've been fleshed out further. I'm not above making some adjustments when the arguments are well-reasoned even if that means partially adopting some canon elements. What's sad is that most of the posters here are too caught up in the cann setting to see that my approach has elments of merit too.

Oh yeah.

The freelancers become an issue in two ways. The first is when they start taking runs aimed at the big boys. This invites retaliation againt the small fry that hired them as well as the runners. The second is when a small timer gets a sufficiently high Rep. This method is tied to the game rules.

Tsk, tsk, tsk...

That really added nothing. Now, let's play nice.

I'm not sure I see the confusion. My post was in regard to corp-born and raised zeroes. I'm not sure what you want me to reconcile.

Yes, both zeroes and elite squads. Some on the books and some not. Almost all zeroes are going to act much more like covert ops/spies than military units.

I may hve just lumped your questions in with something similar or overlooked it. I'll try and get back to it.

I'd never intentionally ignore someone.

Anyone can follow instructions. Some people cannot accept that following instructions does not mean that what is created by following the instructions are canon, even though the rules themselves are canon. To see that another poster here cannot do this just tells me how far that fool has fallen!

What I was asking to be reconciled was the high loyalty of elite operatives, vs cortex bomb controlled operatives, with what I read as you saying that both have the same high loyalty.