Hey, that was a very well reasoned treatise on street-level supply and demand in a black market economy!

Except by the local syndicate - because you're stealing and selling on one low-level guy's turf, and he's responsible for it. City-wide, not much of a bump, but you're making Nuyen in somebody else's sandbox. It's not a question of whether you're hurting business, or providing competition. It's a question of:

*BASH* "Pay me." *SMASH* "Frag you. Pay me." *CRUNCH* "Frag you. PAY ME."

Remember, though - Every transaction, you're losing a little bit of not a lot of profit in the first place, as one more middle-man takes his cut. And not every fixer knows EVERY other fixer, so you're looking at goods passing through six, seven pairs of hands if you're moving a lot of stuff. Diminishing returns, don'cha know?

Crime syndicates don't steal cars. Punks steal cars. Crime syndicates buy stolen cars from punks. The local crime syndicate is making money off the runners, they're not hurting business. They might be making slightly less per unit because of the glut, but they are getting more units so that's still more money.
edit: The only person who's business is going to be hurt here is the punk car-thief.

And sure, there are diminishing returns if the gear has to be sold in Winnipeg because there are too many Ares Predators in Seattle right now. So fine, drop the availability on that one item by a point. Drop the street price on that one item by 15%. Because, of course, flooding the market with Ares Predators doesn't have anything to do with the people looking to buy cars, or comlinks, or anything else, so you have to track every item that they're flooding the market with. Congratulations, you have just tripled the GMs bookkeeping workload. Great fix. Yay, realism.
I don't think the problem with this situation is how SR4's rules don't model real-world economics well enough. There have been a lot of better suggestions already made.

They don't even do that. They just take a cut off the thieves and the fences. That's the beauty, that's the whole point. Organized crime pretty much just sells you a license to operate and not get messed with by other operators. They also provide you with a license to not get your legs broken. Everybody wins. They don't have to do anything, they just don't kill you and you work for them, and pay them for the privilege.

Um... Alright. Because every post is in response to you.

I wasn't responding directly to you. I was simply responding to a problem that is oftentimes brought up, flooding the market will somehow make the stuff worthless. It won't. At worst, it'll drop prices. Your other complaints have been addressed by other posters several times over. Fixers earn their keep by making sure what they sell doesn't track back to you. If they can't do that, they shouldn't be fixers.

In the same day? Wow then, that's a lot.

Oh wait, you mean over a period of weeks to months? That is nothing. An active fence probably moves that much before breakfast minus the vehicles, and probably takes care of that many of those in a matter of days.

No, I'm not. That's one often-confused aspect of Fixers: Fixers don't buy stuff. Fixers sell access to people who buy stuff. They sell this to people who sell stuff. They also sell the other way around. The only commodity a Fixer (in the pure sense of the term) sells directly is information, because it's difficult to have access but not possess it oneself (not impossible).

Many Fixers sideline as Fences, but there's a difference.

You missed my point. My point is that these are people who do this for a living. Not only are they going to be able to make sure a whole shitload of stuff, far more than we're talking about here, will be able to sink quietly, they will also have a pretty good idea of when to stop buying. Sure, people screw up, but to expect that a Fence will get too much of something and then not either sit on it or sell it on to another Fence somewhere else is ridiculous.

Yeah, or twenty times that much on everything but the decks—they vary too much in price to make a meaningful statement about.

We can't discuss this rationally because your idea of a "large quantity" is batshit insane.

~J

Which is why some RP groups are forced to join said behavior, even though they are doing risky work, just miserly GMs.

Lol thats great Platinum!

The question really becomes how big the shadow economy is. I can't imagine that there are more than 100 active runners in Seattle at any one time. I try to imagine a situation where there would be so many powers vying for an edge against each other, and willing to do anything to get it. Maybe, Berlin during the Cold War, or Zurich during WWII? I can't imagine there were dozens upon dozens of agents and counteragents running undercover ops against each other.

I'm not sure how big the market for black market weapons is. Maybe internationally, but is your fixer going to have those kind of connections? The Barrens distort this somewhat, but are the gangs in the barrens really going to be able to buy that case of Ares Alphas?Or even Ares Predators?

What is irrational is your idea on what a large quantity is. I speak not from fiction books and video games here, but from two groups of people I've know; addicts and law enforcement.

I haven't known any really big movers of drugs. I was acquainted friend of a friend with a guy who moved about a kilo of blow plus some weed every year or so and that's about it (SWAT kicked in his door). I also knew some people who moved a few kilos of weed every year as well as plenty of users of various things who'd look to be making back by selling to less-connected users.

Additionally, I have known a fair number of people in law enforcement, primarily local interdiction officers and criminal lawyers but also people in federal law (lawyers and one agent).

What you don't realize is that moving a little of something is a lot easier than moving a lot of something. Unless you want to wait to move over five years (on an aggressive scale with risk) those 100 assault rifles you're going to have to be dealing internationally, not on the street market.

Before you say SR is going to be a lot different than today, I'm way ahead of you. I'm already figuring automatic weapons would be on the same scale drugs are today. Today you'd find it a lot harder to move fully automatic weapons than you would sizable amounts of narcotics.

Let's stay with the guns instead of talking drugs. In SR, the man on the street with exposure to the criminal side of things can move a pistol easily enough. He can probably even find a quick buyer for a civilian long arm. If he has something automatic, it's quite possible he can move it, but he should be careful of getting burned. The average buyer he'd be able to find may not be convinced he needs to deal fair at that price.

This is not what we're talking about though, we're talking about the people who actually do this for a living.

One of these fellows will have a couple channels to distribute what they have. They can send it to different neighborhoods, sell it to local small-time fences who'll put it on the street, they can sell it to be sent out towards areas where it might be harder to get such things, or they can shuffle it between large markets if the supply is already swamped where they are.

It is not cost effective to send one or two rifles at a time off to lesser markets. You'd be selling at a cheaper price because these things are essentially the overflow markets (small town scene). You can, however, dump a few down this way if other routes fail to get the money or lack of risk you want.

The local dealers can only take so many guns at a time. Same is true of other areas' local dealers. If you already maxed out Tacoma's comfort level last month, you probably can't do it again. The reason for this is that law enforcement (despite what you see on TV) knows more about the local scene than you'd think. They'll put the resources into breaking up a big deal not because they need to "get those off the street" but because a big bust brings big promotions to the officers involved. Small fish who have been around long enough, know not to try to be big fish unless the deal is really sweet and really safe (relatively).

If you send them to another market, you lose money because there''s another middleman. You can also only throw so many into the market at once for the reasons listed above. If you need to move them fast, a well-connected dealer will know an international channel, but they'd buy cheap and sell cheap in south-east Asia or to the Chinese warlords.

Moving them to another center of shadow-activity or sending them abroad doesn't just attract LS if the deal is 100 assault rifles though, that attracts federals who are just as hungry for career-making busts as the locals.

So best case, you get 50% retail of 5 of them or so. You manage to shovel some of them out to the fringes for 30% retail. Maybe you can move some down to Cali or something for 15%-20%. And the rest you're exporting at 5%-10%.

This is the most aggressive sale of the weapons possible, represents a lot of risk for the dealer involved and will still take months to complete.

I know TV and the movies make it seem like bulk dealing is easy, but it's not. The small players risk a lot if they try to step up and be big. If you're dealing with a big player, he's buying your stuff really cheap, assuming he's willing to deal with you (unconnected random thug...) at all. If you're dealing with someone in the middle, they can get you moderate 20-40% prices on lots of 10 at a time, but only one every few months.

Me?

Well his whole spiel was based on anecdotal information. Then it gets coupled with supposed corallaries between marijuana and guns, and blow (I'm assuming cocaine) and guns and the factual past and the fictional future. That is his foundation to extrapolate other assumptions.

One of them that seemed really asinine was that guns would not bring a premium in an area basically at war - California. He even makes the assumption there would not be a market for them. Or maybe he was talking about the recent factual past?

Just watch the news. Every time a guy gets arrestedand a gun gets taken off the street, it needs replaced, either by the next scumbag to take his place or by the same guy when he makes bail or gets out of prison. He may actually want more than one gun, because he wants one nearby and he is a little smarter so he is going to ditch his current one if it looks like he is getting pinched.

Guns are a very liquid commodity. Think of the thousands that turn up at gunshows, and the ones that people might think are hot so only sell outside the show. Police auctions sell every piece of crap gun that goes to auction. I can't recall the price of guns ever taking a nosedive. If it costs $500 for a gun bought legally down at the FLGunS, and the price for the same thing from a guy out of his trunk is half, I'd buy 2 ( a friend would probably want one, heck I can think of 20 people I could sell a nice half price Colt 1911 or a Beretta 9mm to), because you never know when you might need an unregistered gun, or when you might have used a gun that you now wish was not registered to you. Would the fence trust me? I don't know, but he'd probably trust 10 of those 20 people I mentioned.

So there is a bunch more anecdotal information and a few more assumptions. I think his numbers are way the fuck off, too. They seem more in line with what I would expect from a city of 100,000 not one of 6 million, and those 100k are in todays world, not the more dangerous fictitious future of SR.

Look at how many events have occurred that it would have been prudent to have a gun. Little things like go gangs controlling interstate highways, little border wars, hostile annexations, race riots, bug city... Yeah, the demand for guns in the volatile fictional future is going to taper off from the recent factual past.

I do not see the market getting sturated by looting shadowrunners. KISS, use the rules that are in place, adjust them a little if you feel you must, and look for other consequences resulting from looting.

Just to let you know, this is when I determined that you have no clue what you're talking about.

Maybe I should have said funtioning. I have seen broken guns sell at police auctions. Every time I have ever went to a public auction, the firearms brought top dollar. Everything else could be selling for 1-10% of its actual value, but those guns brought top dollar.

Tell me what guns you can get and the low low price, and I'll call your ass on it by coming over this weekend to buy them.

This is me, laughing at a bunch of guys who play role-playing games (myself included) sitting around talking like we're international arms dealers:

That's right, I ROFLed. So sue me.

136th Street East & 122nd Avenue East in Puyallup

HAHAHA

That's... Wow. That's just remarkably stupid.

Black Ops aren't going to rely on some punk street dealer with a gym bag full of hot guns because, gee, perhaps they may just not work. Genius move there. Let's see if papa corp or country can't just spread some unmarked factory "spares" that "fell off the back of a truck" somewhere.

As for the last two ... What the fuck are you smoking? Armies buy in bulk, so unless you're Viktor Bout selling 1,000 AKs to Liberian rebels directly from the factories in Russia, the legitimate small arms market is more than sufficient to provide you with small arms and light weapons systems more cheaply than you can get on the black market when dealing with militaries. Bout is only in business because legitimate arms sellers are actively discouraged from selling certain groups and self-proclaimed "armies" such weapons. If you're a corporate army, chances are your employers makes your guns, which is as cheap as you're going to find for their weapons. Why bother wasting your time looking for an outside or illegal source when economy of scale will get you the best deal? It's not like real ARs are cheap on the black market compared to their legitimate counterparts. Especially if you're selling them in bulk like real arms dealers do because they're also selling them ammunition and spares.

Finally, given the fact that the Secret Service spends several hundred thousand dollars a year just on ammunition, and given the fact that there aren't a whole lot of hot Sig Sauer .357 SIG pistols out there, the fact that they buy in bulk is what keeps the prices they pay for said Sigs, MP-5s, and assorted other weaponry lower than what they would be worth on the black market. A Sig is not going to be cheaper on the black market unless it's so hot that the seller is willing to pay you to take it - which isn't exactly done on a large scale.

Because bulk retail's cheaper than scraping up the occassional service-capable pistol, refurbishing it, and making sure you have spares and ammunition for it.

Except, of course, for all the star cops who really don't feel confident their predator or thunderbolt is quite sufficient for all possible situations, or the fact that, last I checked, Lone Star doesn't produce their own weapons and might not be set up such that a $800 gun or $2,000 piece of armor can be procured just by putting in a one page request form. If the system is corrupt, as people like Kage like to read it (and not without a fair bit of canon support), it's quite reasonable to assume that LS does not make a bulk buy and just hand out stuff to whoever asks for it, but rather requires each division or office supply themselves. Therefore, buying a dozen extra side-arms every year to replace what's lost or stolen (mostly the latter) from a criminal racket might make more financial sense.

It sounds like an amazingly corrupt world where getting your precint a discount on the cost of a dozen or so handguns in a year is worth the risk of the Seattle Times running a huge front-page article the next day on "Lone Star lieutenant involved with organized crime."

The LAPD SWAT used to have some armorers recondition the occasional 1911 that they'd pick up off a raid to outfit their officers. Eventually, they stopped doing that and decided to simply get newly manufactured 1911s custom-made for them.

Whereas I figure Johnson's primary goal is that the runners succeed in the run. Whether they loot or don't loot is immaterial, so long as the job is done.

And generally they wouldn't even know if the runners looted.

There are more reasons to pick up that Ares Predator than just selling it.

And from your example of the Excalibur, you clearly consider some looting to be acceptable. I was asking why some posters think all looting is bad and that it would automatically lead to a negative reputation for runners that did it.

How would the Johnson know the runners 'wasted time' anyway? He wouldn't want that much detail on how they did the run and the runners wouldn't want to waste time telling him, either.

BTW, what kind of idiot Johnson offers to pay expenses?

The possibility of the runners looting is the least of Mr. Johnson's worries in this case. Unless he specifies no collateral damage, it's his own stupid fault.