There is always the blackmail option. Suppose the runners had pulled a bloody or destructive run against someone like Aztechnology and the Azzies find out who did it. Rather than kill the runners, they find somone close to one or mre of the runners. They hire a Mr. Johnson to offer the team a run, not telling them it is the Azzies who are hiring them. If they refuse, Mr. J hands over a phone to a PC and on the other end if that certain someone in the hands of a nasty bunch of people. Now its do the job or lose the slob.

Granted that is underhanded as hell, but if the team has been playing fast and loose like there are no consequences, that might shake them up a bit. Of course, there is always the chance the players won't care and still walk away. Have it turn out the certain someone was used in a blood magic ritual and the Azzies let enough of the players contacts know about it. Their well will dry in a hurry over something like that.

...to all, thanks for the pointers.

I actually have a fair amount of GM/DM experience (SF, Fantasy, Superhero), but unlike with these games, characters in Shadowrun need a different incentive "the job offer" to act. it is a lot easier to get them going when say some evil overlord is terrorising the countryside, or a megalomaniac is holding the city hostage with his new super secret death weapon. Runners, (at least in our group) don't get up from their sofa while watching the trivid and say, "that corp is really screwing things up, I think I'll get my chummers together & we'll go take a whack at them."

I particularly like the idea of the fixer handling the deal. For one thing, he or she knows at least on of the PCs and possibly enough about the others to know how to work them. I recently have started to include bodyguards and an "assistant" for the Johnson. For one session, I held the meet in a really ritzy restaurant which discouraged coming in "armed to the teeth" and glowing with sustained spells and active foci. This levelled the playing field on both sides. The only thing with this is that it is unrealistic (unless the same J hires them again) to use such a setting for every mission.

I don't think it's particularly 'unrealistic' at all. and significantly more realistic than rarely having a meet in an upscale location (note that it doesn't always have to be a restaurant either. Have the meet happen at a Seahawks or Mariners Game, in a museum or at a convention - anywhere that security would be moderately high) Most Johnsons represent a group with significant bankroll and out in plain-sight is often the best place to hide something illegal.

The additional expenses incurred over a meet in, say, an abandoned parking garage are easily justified in terms of Johnson Safety and likelihood of hiring a 'better class' of 'Runner. (Remember too, most Johnsons represent a significant investment in training time and resources for the organization they represent and that organization, under normal circumstances, will want to protect that investment)

edit: for clarity

I usually use the pattern of meet somewhere public and nice for the job offer and then the handoff afterwards tends to take place somewhere out of the way.

Favorites for the meet are: restaurants, hotels, parks, night clubs, markets, malls, even the aquarium once.

Handoffs are usually: parking garages, the Barrens, wilderness (Snohomish or Ft. Lewis esp), etc...

...For the mission I ran before the one I am currently putting people through I had the meet take place at Embers, a very exclusive restaurant in the Elven district. Reservations Required, Valet Parking, Black Tie, No spellcasting/sustained spells, walls with Wireless defeating material etc.(lots of paranoid ex Tir slots in the Metrolpex now since the Crash and demise of the old council).

The meet for the current run took place at Gracie's For Ribs (love the old Seattle Sourcebook). Again a fairly respectable place. Actually, this was one of the best meets I ran. The experience they had at Embers might have something to do with why it went so smoothly.

I knew a player in someone else's game that figured out that the game couldn't start until he agreed so he ran the price up really high. He basically blackmailed the GM in game into locking the game up.

I knew another GM who, when that same player did that again said,"well the Johnson can't afford that." and packed up his books and left. The other players solved the problem after that.

The only time that you will see a Mr Johnson in my games is if he is sitting right beside the Fixer. The Fixer doesn't like it but his boss, the Mafia Boss for all of Seattle told him to deal with it. Now if the players try anything funny then they are sitting in a heavily armed building that is owned and run by the Mafia. They have several layers of cyberware scanners, magical protection and machine guns in the walls. This is not including the fact that most of the people in the building are actually bodyguards and street sammies that work for the mafia (it's a club I use). There is a weapons check at the door, but by that time you have passed 8 guards at the entrance to the parking lot, 12 on a wall around the parking lot, another 8 at the door. Then each level has 4 at each stairway going up to the next level. How far up you get depends on who you know. Mafia bosses hang around on the 5th floor but the lower levels are clubs for the lower level people with connections. You have to go up to the 3rd floor to even see the fixer. This is the floor that all the corrupt cops hang out.

If they try and negoitate too much then the fixer will tell them no and so far that has been the end of it. If they say they need it for a specific reason then the fixer can make a call and solve the cost in house.

If they get really stupid and try and attack anyone in there and they happen to escape then they can spend the rest of the game looking over their shoulders. Most of their contacts are through the Mafia and so they are out in the cold. Their IDs were created by a mafia SIN decker. They have no house anymore. They are hunted men.

They have to use organized crime to function in my game. The only independants are low level gangers. If they want to go independant then they will have no ability to make useful contacts. Everyone works or is aligned with someone. You could walk away but you can't set up shop in someone else's back yard.

yeah I have lots of things that make it a bad idea in my game. This was an example of a novice GM just as a warning to others that I try and keep in mind.

I had one person try this with me before I switched to using the Fixer instead of the Johnson. The Johnson just looked at him and said,"I don't need to hire you. I can hire someone else instead that can do this under budget. Convince me that I should hire you at all."

They talked him down instead of up!

well you can send money and I would TRY and remember to pass it along.

Solved that lil' problem a while back.

Teh first thing is to slowly work out a few night-long sessions during your down time. Nothing too fancy, strictly by-the-numbers minor runs, good for low level Runners that you could dash off in a night. Keep about ahalf dozen of those around, so in case of a walkout by teh players, or teh Johnson, the whole night isn't over.

The next is to get past the idea that the Shadowrunners are the *only* Shadowrunners. Have them show up, to see a different team meeting with Mr Johnson and, when the team's turn is up, have Mr Johnson mention that he's got another team (indicated with a nod that-a-way) to interview after the PCs. He's looking for a group that can do teh job, after all, and you don't just interview a single candidate, now do you?

Now, if teh team works with teh same Johnson several times and builds up a good reputation, he might come to them first, or even exclusively. "Ingenue, this is Mr Johnson. I've got a very important mission up and I'd prefer your team take it on. I'm prepared to offer our usual deal and can have the pertinent data delivered to you within the hour if you're interested."

Teh team gets regular work, and gets a Johnson that won't screw them over (Or, well, at least not too badly), because they shaped up and flew right. If they keep pressing their Johnsons too hard, however, they get a bad rep, other teams snap up teh good runs, and the team gets jobs like "Help Mrs Silverman find one of her lost Glow Kats. Pays 1000Y, split however you want."

And nobody wants that.

-- Wak

"Glow Kats, Glow Kats, they're the only cats *bum bum* that glow!"

Back to the original thread.

Use plenty of Nanopaste for every run.
Use it when you meet the Johnston, use it on the run, use it for the handover.
Then don't use that "face" again.

Do this for every run, and you won't care if the face you used on the last run is plastered all over the place.

Your Fixer who sets up the meets, or the Johnston does if he is a regular, will know how to contact the runners, and know that they never look the same, do no problem from that end.

Yup

@SD8685: That was indeed a random example, pulled out of the air. That being said, a Johnson with a particularly brutal negotiation style might start off that low and haggle!

@Toturi: While it might be possible for a team to build up a picture of the run from the vague details the J gives them, that's kind of the point. They won't know the specifics (what file is worth paydata, who needs extracting, which executive has outlived his usefulness) but they'll have a good idea what the job might entail, and whether the price is fair (the job should be doable for that team as the GM is suggesting it!)

Info brokers could indeed fill in the gaps, but that depends on the brokers being able to give the runners the information in a very short time frame, and the runners being willing to shell out the yen for the info.

I definately agree that a J isn't going to want to make his/her spiel more than 2 or 3 times, but should the first team they meet not take the job, they don't want the job to be fragged for any later teams.

Since this topic seems to have become "How to stop my social adept players from screwing over Mr. Johnson", here's my contribution.

Pick up your old Shadowrun Companion (Fanpro 25010) and turn to page 52 "How to Hire a Shadowrunner" I know this chapter was copied from an earlier source, but I can't think of what that was right now.

Anyway, this chapter talks about shadowruns from the other side of the fence, from Mr. Johnson's perspective. Using procedures like having a professional Mr. J stand in for you, tissue samples to keep the group in line, and other things.

Hope this helps, or at least doesn't hurt.

Professional Johnsons should often employ less-than-ethical means to track or manage the shadowrunners that they hire. They are hiring what they consider street trash to do dirty, dangerous work that they don't want traced back to them. So I would have no problem with Johnsons choosing intimidating settings, occasionally resorting to blackmail even when it isn't needed, and so on, simply for flavor.

But you shouldn't need these tactics simply to keep the players in line during negotiations! ShadowDragon8685's first post on this said it best - give the Johnson a hard cap on what he can offer the runners. After all, it's not his money that he's spending. So that keeps the maxed-out faces in check. As for boorish PCs, simply have them suffer the appropriate in-game consequences, although Johnsons will cut them some slack, since they usually expect thugs.

All the runners I played went all "borrowed ladder" from gataca -- basically, you clear off absolutly all the dead skin cells and loose hair you can from your body, every morning, and carry around dead skin cells and loose hair (and toenail clippings, ect) to spread around so if anyone investigated, they found traces, but not of you.

One extremly paranoid character even went as far as to have a small reserve tank implanted with a DNI valve to make the borrowed urine actually come out of the appropriate oriface. The materials would come from various one-off deals with squatters in the barrens. 100 for a bucket of piss or a handful of hair was a pretty good deal.

slump that is creative, funny, gross, and disturbing all at the same time. I guess people would be realy careful what they drank out of his frige.

I know of one group that is so paranoid about ritual sorcery, having been hit with it once before, that they've gone to impressive extremes, including:
Only half the team is physically present for the meet; the rest are there over the Matrix.
Those who go to the meet wear what amounts to a layer of latex and Saran-wrap under their clothes (clothes that are only worn for meets and thus have no reside on them), if they have hair, it's not natural, and, if the mage has assensed that the Johnson has no obvious magical backup, the mage constantly casts this invisible sterilize spell that has no visual effects

Mr. Johnson shops around with fixers, not shadowrunners. A Johnson calls up a known fixer on his database and says "I need a team good with infiltration. You got anyone on tap?" The fixer says, "Yeah, I have a few teams that fit that bill. Let me ask around and see who's available." Then the Johnson says, "Excellent, have the team meet me at Icarus Descending, Friday @ 10:30 p.m. sharp. Ask for a Mr. Montebello." *click* Then the fixer runs through their datapad and finds out which team has the best availability and hires them. The Johnson doesn't shop around at the meet. That's just stupid.

Who needs fecal matter.
Just have a very sharp needle get a blood sample when they sit down, some kind of auto-injector.

It strikes me that jabbing your potential employees with a needle could make the deal go south very quickly. Since the way I see it is that shadowrunners run the gamut. Most have a certain level of professionalism. Others are more or less crazy kamikaze berserkers that happen to hire out their 'talents' for money. All of them are well armed, and usually have reason for paranoia. Even if the needle trick worked say nine out of ten times. Time number ten ends with the Johnson getting shot.

Are tiny flakes of skin cells sufficient for ritual magic? What if the runners are using Link-me-no-more? For every gimmick you try to get their ritual sample with, you might as well just say,"The Johnson has your ritual samples. No. No. I don't care. Cos I said so."

Actually, on the tenth time, it would end with the Johnson getting dead. But for the rest of the 9 times, it would end with the Johnsons telling the runners everything they know. Remember the GM might be god, but there are a lot more players than GMs and they know where you live.

Well I don't remember if its in this thread or another, but I remember reading something here on Dumpshock that has forever changed my shadowrun universe for all time...

In the world of the shadows, there is one line that no-one will ever dare cross, and that is the Runners and Johnson will *NEVER* try to touch each other, and if either side crosses that line then the other has total right to rape, torture, and then kill the other without fear of lossing their rep.

As for tiny flakes of skin and the minute DNA you could find on someone's glass, even if they are good enough to use as a ritual link which I personally doubt (However, at the moment I'm feeling too lazy to search my copy of Street Magic to check for sure.) you have to remember that unless this is a rush job then more than likely the magical link will have faded before the run has even began.

Of course getting a cell sample would be tough. Check out Street Magic, the rules on sympathetic links for ritual magic in the advanced magic rules, pages 28-29. You can, with some luck, get a link off of that glass that the runner was drinking from or a symbolic link with a voodoo doll that is made to look like the runner.

Not saying getting a sample is easy or smart, just that if someone wanted to do it, they don't need an actual sample anymore, just stuff like that listed.

True, you're right, it is possible to get Links from the items that you mentioned, however I think you are missing my main point;

I doubt that a few skin flakes are going to last any longer then a bloodstain so you are looking at having to start your ritual within a few hours plus whatever time your preserve spell and/or refrigerating the sample bought you before it is worthless. So with the exception of an extreme rush job its pointless to do so.

For the wine glass you are quite literally talking about only having a matter of minutes before the link is completely useless, so I don't really see much of a point unless the meet itself was nothing more then a set-up from the start and there never was a job for the characters in the first place.

As for using a Voodoo Doll, yes, but then you are also talking about something that can only be done with Metamagic and at the very least takes a full day per doll.

So yes, Ritual Magic can be a very dangerous tool, and in some cases if the Johnson has done his legwork and managed to get ahold of favored personal belongings for the entire team, or has access to the necessary metamagic and time to craft voodoo dolls of the entire team there isn't really much of anything that the team can do to defend themselves against him, but then you have me wondering what in the nine hells are the Runners agreeing to do to be worth that much effort on the Johnsons part before he even knows whether they'll accept the job or not.

Because unless they are agreeing to something on the scale of Mission Impossible ect then I think it is the same exact thing as simply dropping a Thor Shot on them.

I do things that way too. I mean, street cred, rep for specific kinds of work, etc. Unluckily for some of my players, they got outstanding good rep for a couple bodyguard and security duties and now are called for the most horribly difficult runs. (and their character stats still lag behind their reputations)

Ok course, they earn good money, but it's fun to watch:

Mr Johnson - "The opposition expected is both corporate and government, and it is expected that ultimate measures be taken against you once your cover is blown, of course, we are sure your team will be able to handle that..." (extracted from last run, still in progress)

cheers,

Max

Yeah, powerfull voodoo mystic adepts that spirit their charisma to 12 and negotiate with 18+ dice do often miss the subtle clues the world gives them while they are masturbating on their own power. Blow and Glow, who coulda thunk?

EDIT: Just realizing thread addressed was 3 pages back.

Yeah, I always had problems with body guard runs as well. Always struck me as a lot of waiting, then sudden burst of action, then it's over. Bottle rocket run.