Concealability is a problem for the Alpha but a neurostun grenade or a long burst of SnS at 50m or more says STOP pretty well.

The point I was trying to make, is that a "wealth by level" style game balance is very vulnerable to accidental windfalls or accidents.
a) Imbalance results from realistic luck or bad luck, OR
b) Balance needs to be restored by "ordained" losses of gear/gains of gear to restore balance

It's not a very elegant way to run things.

Since, as a Shadowrunner, I break the law regularly, it not being legal for me to own is pretty much moot. And if LE knows who I am and that I own an Ares Alpha, I have already miserably failed at my profession.




In general, this is a VERY BAD idea. That license for possession means that if you EVER use it in the commission of a crime, the cops can and will link the ballistic evidence back to you. Now, if don't think the cops will check very closely, you MIGHT have a license to carry a Thunderbolt with SN R123456789A, but you actually carry a Thunderbolt with R123456789B. You shoot people in the face with "B", but the paperwork says you carry "A", so the ballistic evidence doesn't point back to you.

My guess is your GM hasn't thought too hard about how this sort of thing really works.



I'd like to know the sort of circumstances under which...
1. You'd be carrying around an Assault Rifle, NOT during the commission of a crime, and get stopped by the cops (just plain stupid)
2. You'd be carrying around an Assault Rifle DURING the commission of a crime, and any cops you encounter are more concerned with the legality of the weapon you are carrying than the fact that you are breaking the law while carrying an assault rifle.
3. Same as 2, except you actually stop and try to explain things to said cops rather than shooting them in the face.





Again, if you get photo-IDed during the commission of CRIME, I seriously doubt the legality of the ASSAULT RIFLE you are carrying is going to be much of a concern for LE/Corp Sec.




Yes, walking around in downtown Seattle with an AR slung on your back is going to get you in trouble. But it's going to be just about the same amount of trouble whether is an "F" rated Ares Alpha or an "R" rated M22A3, and does NOTHING for game balance unless your GM is a complete imbecile.

I see this line of thinking pop up a lot on dumpshock. Is it is common in your game that people stroll around Seattle (or which ever metroplexes you run in) with legal and registered SMGs/assault rifles/shotguns/sniper rifles slung on their backs? Seriously? Do the cops/corpsec in your game worlds think "Hmmm, that guy out there looks a little suspicious...oh, that's an AK-97 on his back...it's legal...no worries." Really? <shakes head>




Again, if you need GM fiat to fix a problem caused by a piece of gear, then the item in question is BROKEN.




I covered this in my last post.

Sixth world is a dangerous place to live, so i think SMG and shotguns would be pretty common on the sreets

Of course this is not a desirable situation, but if the weapon is legal and you have not committed a crime with it (or have changed the barrel and destroyed the one that has), you have another option besides losing the pursuers or gunning them down.

In the aforementioned situation the item only became a problem because of GM Fiat, this is not a fault of the item.

There is a difference between using a gun in a crime and the cops proving you did. With an F weapon they don't even have to do that to put you in jail. Preferably you wouldn't want to be in that kind of situation but with an R item and a license that checks out (good fake or a real one) you have one more option.

You can't carry them easily. You can figure out ways to carry them concealed, but it's not trivial to wander around with. Plus it's big enough and oddly shaped enough that an experienced cop has a pretty good chance of noticing that you are packing something heavy.

Streets of Mogadishu, sure.

Streets of Boston, MA, UCAS? Ummm, no. ESPECIALLY with the US breaking up into separate countries and the Bill of Rights (specifically the 2nd Amendment) no longer applying.

In major urban sprawls, I wouldn't be surprised to tons of laws against open-carry. Even today, in Raleigh, NC, I can openly carry my USP45 on my hip when out on the streets, and I own it legally, but the cops WILL show up, and will harass me. And I don't have any sort of criminal record, nor do I commit crime for a living.

So what I am getting from your post is that, and please correct me if I am wrong, the legality code attached to the availability does not matter in the game at all? If that is the case they why is it there to begin with?

And actually the legality of the assault rifle is a concern for Corp Sec/LE because if you are toting an Ares Alpha which is described as and you are not an Ares Firewatch member, then that opens a whole new line of questioning for them. Where did you get it?, ect. ect. ect.

A couple of questions come to mind. 1) where do you get your weapons from? 2) how do you get said weapons to and from a job? 3) what do you do with said weapons after the job is over?

Honestly, I don't think it's a very well thought out mechanic at all, and I just don't see it coming into play all that often for certain things. If you are going to be in a place where you really feel like you NEED an Assault Rifle, then you will probably attract the wrong kind of attention, regardless of whether it's "F" or "R".





Most likely you are carrying so you can shoot those types of people in the face. If so, then legality rating means exactly six pounds of dick.




Illegally, probably stolen, maybe even off my dead foes. Sure the fuck not from Weapons World™ where they are tied to a SIN. At least, not the weapons I plan on using during the commission of a crime.




In such a way that if I happened to be "pulled over" by the cops, they don't find them. Mostly, my teams arranges to have some of the bigger guns to be dropped near to the site we are hitting, and we just dump them afterwards. It's all part of the cost of doing business.

Incidentally, if LS or KE pulls you over and you have a fully registered AR on your backseat, I'm sure it will all work out, right? Or maybe, now they have your photo, fake SIN #, and know you have an AR and can connect you to the downtown shooting AFTER the fact. So now you STILL have to dump the ID, the SIN, AND the weapon. Not worth it.




Usually dump them, or sell them cheap to gangers or whatever. Like I said, it's part of the cost of doing business. We do the same with vehicles too.

I'm curious about your groups average run payout and run frequency per month.

Legality codes, like most aspects of Runner paranoia/security/fieldcraft, is one of those remarkably subjective things that comes down to what level of "realism" you want your game run with. There's not really a right or wrong way to do it, it just comes down to what type of game you feel like running.

Me too. We run an average of 3.5 runs per month and receive around 8k per sucessfull run, ditching an assault rifle EVERY run sounds a lot expensive.

If you don't shoot it you don't need to ditch it. And depending on what was going on you often have little chance of a serious investigation.

But if you end up in serious shootout in where a serious investigation will be launched by a well funded group you should ditch your guns, your clothes, mags, everything. Destroy them all. Then get the hell out of town and spend a few weeks inside a good ward. Even ignoring normal forensics, the potential of ritual magic being used to trace you is always there and if they get someone good enough or lucky enough awful things could happen with essentially no warning.

It really depends.

When I'm GMing (most of the time), I don't keep the PCs on a schedule. Work is sporadic. They might get a big job with a fat payoff, then have no work at all for the next 3 months. Then when they start getting hungry, they'll start taking smaller jobs with smaller payouts.

I would say they probably pull off 4 - 5 jobs a year (of game time) where dumping equipment/clothing/vehicles/etc. is an expected part of the plan. For those jobs, they usually plan for about 20% - 25% of the payoff to go towards expenses (like stuff you'll need to dump after the run).

So if the job pays $200k, then they expect the mission to COST them $40k - $50k to pull off. Bribes, paying for additional resources, disposable/specialized gear, etc. That still ends up netting a 4-man team $35k - $40k. Roughly 4 - 6 months of basic expenses, plus the leftover to reinvest in training/gear/ware/whatever.

Keep in mind that, after a job like that, the players probably won't get any more big jobs for several more months. Sometimes another big job will come along, but other times all that's available is the milk runs (~$20k payout).

If you can't tell, our games are not "street". All of the characters are either former Special Operations or former CIA types (some are both). Basically, you are looking at a team of Jason Bournes/Sam Fishers. These guys aren't cheap, but they can pull off a lot of shit that your average 400BP runner team cannot.

Also, a good bit of their work takes them out of the UCAS, which often necessitates that we "gear up" AFTER we get to the AO. And you can bet that gear doesn't usually come back with us.


EDIT: In case anyone was wondering about the character make-up:

This. My group took two jobs the other night (read: real life time, we meet once a week). One to shake down a PI for info and the other to steal a boat.

First job, the PI: he was doing some investigating and knows something about Renraku, the Johnson wants the info and wants the guy dead. 10k and 20k for each part of the job.
- Info: leaked* information about Big D's will and the door 1835 in Renraku
Second job, the boat: there's an oil tanker bound for the archology, we want the oil in it, 35k for the job, just sail it out into international waters.

No really. We're hijacking an 800m long oil tanker. No. None of us have Pilot: Boats.

*The gm's messed with the dates a little. We're doing the archology shutdown, but it's November before Big D kicks the proverbial bucket.

Yeah, we are not playing a prime runner campaign yet.

And you wont for a long, long time.

Just need more 210 karma points for that