This is why I felt I needed "Identity" rules with a "heat" attribute... so that there would be actual game consequences to doing stupid stuff, or just generally not paying attention. Players may argue about who should or should not occur based on the dynamics of any given situation, but when they have real numbers to work with, most players are more than happy to adjust.

Also, reward mechanics are useful for encouraging behavior... well, that you want to encourage. I think the Karma system is kind of limited, but there are other rewards, too. Just be sure the players know what they are getting rewarded for and be consistent.

Still, as nice as carrots are, sometimes sticks are damn handy... j/k

Err I don't get it. Can you elaborate a bit? Was this discussed in another thread somewhere?

I agree. I use notoriety, street cred, and public awareness a lot for this reason. I also like to point out what they earn each point of karma for.

Right now I am dealing with a couple of characters who tend to be very antagonistic towards the Johnsons who are hiring them. They look to squeeze the poor bloke with their over maxxed social skills (further augmented by spells and 'ware) until his head pops off like a pinata and a bunch of pours out on the table. It has come to the point I feel need to make every "J" a social adept initiate just to give him or her a fighting chance in a negotiation test.

I would also like to add a "point a." to this:

Also never be an ass to the other NPCs you meet. You never know who they may know. Reputation is power and word gets around if you come off like a total jerk to everyone you meet. You may find it tough to get that next job because the young woman you just insulted was the daughter of an important figure who happens to have a lot of connections both in and outside of the shadows.

KK:

Every Johnson has an upper limit of money he's willing (or able!) to spend. If they go beyond that, then he either says "X, and not a more!" where X is the most he'll spend, or the deal's off.

Generally, a Johnson has three figures: What he'd like to pay the Runners, what he accepts he's likely to pay the Runners, and the vey most the job is worth to him (or the maximum amount he actually can pay, whichever is lower.)

The expected amount is the middle, it's generally 100% of what he budgeted for. His starting offer will be about 75% of that - this is what he'd like to pay them. If they're stupid enough to say yes, the deal is golden. Everyone expects the Runners to bargain up - it's a ritual of the Sprawl. The expectation is that they'll bargain up 1/3rd of what he quotes them - or 25%, to meet the full 100% quota. If they're very canny, he'll reluctantly go up to an extra 25%, or two-thirds more of his original quote. Chances are he simply cannot pay for them, and will say "Look. I know you guys are good stuff, and you obviously believe you're worth more, but that's as high as I'm going. Either you'll have to take the job for that, or I need a new set of assets."

Generally, when their savvy Social skills have forced a Johnson to level with them, most runners will say "Okay. That's fine."

BEWARE THE JOHNSON who agrees to any amount above this! The customary up-front is between 10% for a simple job to 50% for a ridiculously complicated job. If he agrees to any more than two-thirds more than his original quote, he is, 7 for 10, SETTING YOU UP and planning to geek you when the job's done.


On the other hand, depending on relations with this J, including how desperate he is to get the job done, he may be able to throw in some "Goodies". Such as "Look, I just can't go above that. But I might be able to throw in some extras, make them fall off the truck, you know?" Of course, never, ever, ever trust the J - go over the goodie with a fine-toothed comb to pick out all the RFIDs and microbugs and go over it's programming with a microscope, a Hacker, a Technomancer, and a priest.


Generally, you shoulden't push a J this hard. On the other hand, connected Johnsons may be receptive to "You know, this job sounds hard... How about some extra, but I'm not thinking money. A little quid pro quo? I scratch your back, you slap something nice into mine?" This works best if you don't haggle up the J's asking price. Depending on the availability of what you're asking, and how much he likes you, it may be a "No sweat" to "No @^@%ing way!"

IE: You're asking an Ares man for a crate of Predators. Even a Crate of Preds won't sell for much, and if the money he was expecting to give you was worth more than their wholesale value, he'll probably consent. If all you want is a few guns, he'll toss them in and call his starts lucky. Asking a NeoNET man for programs is almost a sure thing - all that costs him is the cost of the datachip. And so forth and so on.

It seems kind of silly to me for the GM to penalize players for making their characters effective. It sends the wrong message. All you need to do is set an upper limit like my brother with the same name suggested I think the BBB even suggests this.

That's an easy one to fix. If you have a run all planned out and they walk on that johnson, depending on the amount of pre-meet legwork they did, the next johnson could have the exact same mission (you know, the one you spent a week planning), just with a different facade.

Remember, it's only railroading if they players feel they don't have a choice.

Also, this is why I like having modular mission sections for whatever game I'm running. Indoor Security, Outdoor Security, Matrix Security, Objective, Layout. Mix and match. Having 3 of each catagory gives you have 243 unique combinations. It makes sense that security would be relativly standardized because they would use what works, and by mixing and matching, you get alot of variety without alot of work. Plus, to make longer runs, just have multiple linked objectives either in different facilities (with different layouts and security) and there ya go.

...and then have them meet up with the team the original johnson hired after they turned it down. Nice Idea.

'In the past I would pull out one of the runs from the old "Missions" sourcebook and send the players on a food run smoke break to skim over the adventure. However, I have pretty much exhausted this resource. My runs, particularly in a long campaign, are split up into various sections. If the runners skip by one part, the flow of action still takes place just without their participation. a lot of the time it ends up making their mission even harder, for they missed important clues, didn't make useful NPC contact, or, as in one instance, the NPC they were supposed to be watching was abducted when they bullied their way to on board one another NPCs helicopter to check out a situation in London that was none of their business.

If the PCs are routinely walking out on the Johnson, then it sounds like you have an out of character problem. This isn't something you should fix in game. Talk to your players. Maybe they want a faster pace of advancement. Ask them why they just walk out, and reiterate your situation to them. Have any of them GM/DMed before? It sounds like they don't appreciate the work you put into this.

It's been a long while since I last played Shadowrun, and I can't find my notes right now, but basically, here's how it would look (level of detail and type of threats is really dependant on group and DM, though)

Layout: Warehouse, Research Lab, Factory, X-story office building. Since office buildings will typically have the same layout on every floor, except possibly the first and top floor, a 5-story office building has the same layout as a 100-story office building.

Outdoor Security: Street (whatever the zone rating is for Star response), Corporate Compound (similar to street, but response times are shorter, but you usually have less people to deal with), Wilderness with patrols (roving patrols of corpsec probably with dogs or other critters), Wilderness without patrols (similar to street, but response times are much, much longer).

Indoor Security: Patrolling Drones (with a rigger), Single security guard, Patrolling guard, extensive cameras, extensive alarms, deathtraps (motion sensor guns, ect).

Magical Security: None. We didn't like the magic rules much, so we pretty much ignored the awakened world.

Matrix Security: Color-Rating. I have a program on my calculator that generates random responses based on color and rating, including IC and Agents. I just input how much security tally the decker got and the program tells me the systems response. One can use matrix security to use/disable alarms and cameras, unlock/lock doors, ect.

Objective: Gismo (usually for research or warehouse), Financial Data (usually office or research), Staffing Data (any), Shipping Data (any, but more often for warehouse or research), Extract, Wetwork, Insert (could be data, could be a physical device).


So, without further ado, a Generic Run!

Layout: 4-story office building.

Outdoor Security: Street. 1 Star patrol within 5 minutes, 4 cars within 10 minutes, SWAT within 10 minutes of being called.

Indoor Security: 1 bored corpsec at lobby security desk, halls and elevators have cameras, windows and external/fire doors have alarms, elevators disabled, need to use the security guards key to access.

Magical Security: None.

Matrix Security: Green-4

Objective: Offline storage of financial records.

To create multiple linked objectives to create longer runs, just use the objective from the run as a trigger or recon for the next run.

Example: Steal research data from research facility, Steal shipping data from warehouse, Intercept/Extract Gismo being shipped, Insert Gismo and data at rival corp research facility, call in a tip and watch the fireworks as the two corps have fun with each other.

Tools, however, may contain ritual links to you. Thus, loosing a tool can lead to the loss of self.

but you can replace parts of your self.

whole new meaning

I've heard that song. Who was it speaking? Some-one said it was Baz Lurhmann.

...actually, some of the more disruptive characters are played by one of the other GMs in our group. It's not so much they actually walk out than they threaten to or browbeat the J. Unfortunately because of the situation I mentioned in earlier posts, I end up accommodating their wishes since I invested a fair amount of time setting up the run (and getting to the site we play at) and don't want to waste it all by just packing things in.

As to advancement, I am pretty generous to a point. The pure roleplay segments offer a lot of opportunity for the characters to to earn bonus "Instant Karma".

I actually have considered that. In my last campaign, the PCs actually tied to avoid Face to Face with the Johnson since she was fairly "influential".

Unfortunately Portland seems to be a fairly "lean" gaming community when it comes to SR so I feel I have to take what I can get.

@Garrowolf: Interesting take. I'll have to keep this in mind for the next mission.

Throw in more intimidation factor. Give the Johnson a few body guards and use them to threaten the PCs if they step out of line. Or just make a Johnson a super badass and fight the PCs once or twice.

I meant monetary advancement. You might be the mage's best friend because of the karma you're giving out, but the sammies are dependent on nuyen to advance.

I'll admit that I do this sometimes. *offers hand for slap* Sometimes a frequent GM can have a hard time remembering that they're not in charge, and need a reminder.

I know it can be hard getting the group to toe the line a bit more, but if that's the issue you're having, you're either going to have to do something about it, or expect it to keep happening.

As an example, I was having that problem, with the PC's being tools to the Johnson frequently. I got sick of it. THey came in to a meet, ,sat down with the Johnson, Johnson gave them the pitch. They started being smart asses, and one guy, said "Oh great, another extraction." (The last one they'd done about 3-4 sessions ago hadn't gone well. I was runnning Blood in the BOard room, following the Ares track for this session).

THe Johnson stood up, said "I was told you're team was professional. APparetnly I heard wrong.", and walked out. They just sat they're looking at each other. I rna them going about their daily lives for the next hour or so, about a week in game time. They tooled around shops, burned some cred, yadda yadda yadda, before they got another call for a lower paying, entry level type run, form their fixer, who was none to happy with them. It sucked, because I was stoked about the run, but it worked out better in the end.

okay they threaten the Johnson, that's what the bodyguards are for...
looks like you have two options.
option 1:
J: "sit down like a good boy."
Runners: "<insert insult and threat>"
J: "what you thought I picked this restaraunt because I like the atmosphere? no I picked it because all my friends come here...and they all have bodyguards...if you take the time to look around half of the people here are armed and will kill you if you try any of that crap again."

option 2:
double cross them, the J doesn't like being threatened.
have him agree to whatever price the runners ask, and only give 10% up front. then the "drop point" just so happens to be where a couple of lone star HTR teams are following up on an anonymous tip about some runners...

Sorry it took so long to get back to you on this. I've been spending my time in the hacking threads. In honor of Microsoft's release of their newest operating system, I've switched over to Linux, and so I've spent a lot of time with my computer playing around and exploring all the new features at my fingertips rather than doing productive things like posting dumpshock posts and writing up my Shadowrun rules. Sorry.

First, my "identity" rules can be found in Cetiah's Identity Rules. This is Part I of my Social Engineering system (which may be inadptly named, but I think it sounds cool and Shadowrun-y). Part I: Identity covers rules for lifestyle, credit, reputation, and how to launder money. Heat (also referred to as 'marks') is used as a way to adjudicate when an identity becomes too risky to use. If you get too much heat, the identity becomes 'tagged', which means its very dangerous to keep and difficult to get rid of. The concept of "heat" interacts with my Mission Builder which has yet to be posted because I'm starting to question some of the inherent premises on which it was built.

Social Engineering Part: II will be posted either this weekend or next week and will cover "downtime actions" - the stuff runners do when they're not running and the players aren't playing. All those little things they get "assumed" during play are now covered in downtime actions. These actions are required to maintain relationships with your contacts, tinker with your stuff to stay ahead of SOTA, heal after an injury, or "Go To Ground" when you've got too much heat on your identities, and also to generally improve your identity by using it for day-to-day normal affairs. Each "downtime action" will take 1 day in which your primary activity for that day will assumed to be based around the selected "downtime action". I'm hoping it should work pretty well for those runners that have side-aspects of their characters that rarely come into play, such as arms dealing, day jobs, or fixers.

Social Engineering Part III will cover my rules for contacts and how they are used, acquired, and lost. This will tie in heavily with my identity rules because contacts are associated with identities now (even they don't know who you really are - unless you trust them with your inherent identity, which has benefits and drawbacks). It will also include guidelines for making sub-type characters - contact-type "themed" characters that have become runners (or vice versa). The bulk of this section will be on the rules regarding how contacts work, and new rules (and examples) for legwork, stakeouts, and investigations.

I don't remember if Cetiah's Custom Hacking Rules have been updated to include identity rules yet, but the only places I can think of mentioning it are that tracing and tracking someone electronically causes an increase in heat for the identity being used. Also, the trid pirate can sacrifice paydata to "expose" someone's illicit or immoral activities, increasing their heat (along with adjustments to their rep). I don't remember if the trid pirate stuff has been posted yet, but once there's decent rules for it, I think it might be a desireable sub-type for a lot of hackers. I also want to include the possibility of manipulating public policy (i.e., "heat") to do things like get people fired, rig elections, or stop black-op projects, as kind of an alternative way of winning some mission goals (or alternative missions the runners can be sent to accomplish). I'm not sure where to include this stuff yet - it will either be included in Social Engineering I: Identity or in Cetiah's Custom Hacking Rules under the trid-pirate sub-type.

The identity rules were made to accompany the Mission Builder, which is currently being re-designed based on ideas from people in this forum. It was made to replace those "Security Ratings" and similiar "rules" from previous editions, but was designed to make a random variety of missions for the runners to choose from because I didn't like the idea of the runner's having only one choice of mission to go on each session. Now if they got a trecherous Johnson, it's their fault because they chose it. If the mission was harder then expected, oh well, it's not the GM's fault - I didn't make you pick that one. Also, the Mission Builer makes sure I don't forget key critical components of things like building security or clues in legwork, etc. It's designed to provide a mission "frame" so that a GM can provide and adjust details on the fly. For example, there's a fixed amount of security guards that the GM is allowed to throw at the PCs, but various "security events" increase this amount. This interacts with identity because there are some traps like "Marking Wards" and "FRID Tags" and "Screamer Cameras" that will add Heat to a runner's identity after the run if they didn't detect and circumvent these traps.

If you have any more questions related to any of these rulesets, feel free to either post in the thread already made, make a new thread, or PM me and I'll start a new thread.

(P.S. Garrawolf also posted some identity-rules that he uses in my Identity thread. You may be interested in checking those out, too - they're a lot simpler than mine but were made to deal with similiar issues.)

For the most part, I disagree with that. This does depend on your location and your crew, and the type of job of course. But give your standard fare run, and assume a "Runnner Haven" like Seattle, where there's plenty of talent available, I'd say it's a fair assumption that if the J didn't like the team, he could walk and have another meet with another team within 12-24 hours.

Factor in "urgnet run" or high quality teams, or lack of general talent in the area, and this could change of course. The J is also going to expect a certain amount of guff and disrespect from "gutter runners", but there should be that line where they have to be reminded of who the employer is, and that there are other runners out there looking for a pay day.

Maybe a competition run against other runner teams like the one in Blood in the Board room would be a good reminder.