Does it ADD social pool dice and subtract from Intimidate checks?

There's no such thing as a negative stat in the game as far as I'm aware. If anything, it functions as a "Notoriety Hole" that can be filled with any Notoriety you gain in the future. At least that's how I'd treat it.

Yeah, thats the way we do it too... I was just hoping for some backing for that in RAW via some obscure German-only official FAQ or something.

They tended to skip on really simple but blatant rule holes for some reason. So I wouldn't hold my breath on finding one; but it would be awesome if there were.

Its a messy mechanic. So, uh... if it can be negative and someone wants to reduce their Public Awareness and have a Notoriety of 0 do they get a -1 after reducing it by 1 for lowering Public Awareness?

And yeah... 2 street cred have to be sold back but thats not part of my point.

Actually, that's the only way of keeping your Public Awareness low per RAW.

I had just pretty much combined Street Cred and Notoriety onto the same number line, notoriety being a negative number, and street cred being a positive number.

Therefore, Negative notoriety would become street cred, negative street cred would be notoriety.

The Notoriety, Street Cred and Public Awareness rules are horribly broken if used as-is anyway. They basically say "No matter how clean your runs are, no matter how tight lipped your fixer is, and no matter how well you clean your trail so that only those 'in the know' are aware that The Jaguar did this... You'll eventually end up so that any schmoe on the street will recognize your face. Even if you've never shown it."

I've never gotten the impression those rules were meant to be used wholesale unless your GM couldn't think of a better way to hand out the respective rep points.

I agree Adarael. It essentially becomes "death by popularity".

If I ran a new campaign, I would start running all three stats like Notoriety is now, just awarding a point for each when a character does something that likely would increase it. Drawing a lot of attention publicly (in legal or illegal ways) might add Public Awareness. Doing something that might get you a negative rep gets you Notoriety. doing something that looks good professionally gets you Street Cred.

That'd work better for the way I play. Though I could see why some might not like it. Fiat to the max!

That's pretty much the only sensible way to do things. Look at it like this:

1) Characters do Harlequin's Back as their first run and manage to survive.
2) Characters go on to do some kind of massive matrix-based run series and survive, in the process ripping several small banks in third world nations. Because they're bastards.
3) Characters partake in a number of extractions, datasteals, etc, none of which they leave any trace at, nor do they ever show their face, and they kill all witnesses.
4) The Characters then proceed to do some black ops wetwork in the third world, and always get away scott-free.

Let's assume they get a total of 250 karma for these runs. By the letter of the RAW, they should have a street cred of 25, a notoriety of 0-2 (assuming they nether fuck up horribly nor do 'good deeds' - the bank deals tip them towards some notoriety), and a public awareness of 9.

This means that they are on the cusp of having McHugh's Happy Meal toys of them. Underwear with their images on it. TV Shows and cartoons. Yet there are problems with this:

In #1, the 70 karma or so the PCs earned shouldn't be counted, because nobody on earth knew it happened. Period. Harlequin, Frosty, and maybe those they told might know. But honestly, that 70 karma should be out the window. With #2, the matrix-based nature of the crimes means that if the runners got away with it and aren't in jail, nobody should put #2 together with any other run series. With #3, if they leave no trace and never show their faces, they could be any number of runner teams, unless someone has Distinctive Style or it's 3 troll girls who dress like hockey players. And with #4, do you really think what Joebob The Banana Republic Sec Guard thinks about who killed El Jefe is gonna impact the monoculture so heavily? Especially when it's just speculation?

There's a place for the rules as written, to be sure, but they just can't be used alone without tweaking unless you're playing a very particular game.

As a standard thing I run Street Cred on a sliding scale.

That only delays the problem.

Karma is Karma and Rep is Rep. Those stats aren't meant to be linked.

Hmmm I don't even know how to get notoriety. They're such odd rules but I do like some sort of rep mechanic just to keep "score".

Frank disassociates street cred from any sort of bonus dice. He just uses it as a meterstick to guage what kind of jobs we get offered. Good thing too as my street cred is 21.

Having a Notoriety around -20 helps. too.

You know 0 is just as good.

WTF? I just reread the rules and working for a dragon gives you notoriety? Not cool.

Take a look how 'positive' Notoriety is defined and what it results in. 'Negative' Notoriety is the oposite:
The character is a Mr. Nice-Guy who can't scare anybody that knows him.
He's a jolly good fellow that gets along with everybody... and people just don't have to prove themselves in regards to him.

And once that white west got into the double digits, it's essentially teflon-coated by RAW.
What, he burned down an orphanage? No... that must have been an accident.
He shot somebody in the back? Silly, that was surely self-defense and he had a good reason.

The rules specifically state that the GM can lower a character's Public Awareness for "any exceptional efforts the character had made to keep her profile low and activities secret." It also states that the GM should increase it if a runner does anything too bold that gets them on the front page of a screamsheet. More than most rules, Public Awareness is fully dependant on the GM and player's roleplaying as far as the rules themselves go. The whole Cred+Notoriety/3 really is just a baseline idea rather than a hard rule in this case.

On the same token, nothing in those rules state that it applies to anything more than your runner persona. For a character like Fastjack, it really would only apply to his icon and name. Police and law enforcement do likely have dossiers about him, and he is practically a household name. That doesn't mean anyone knows who the man behind Fastjack is, but if his icon were to waltz into a public node, just about everyone would be left gawking and gossiping.

Ignoring all that, players have the option of burning their Street Cred to lower their Notoriety which, in turn, also lowers their Public Awareness. So there isn't a problem unless you're earning too much of one over the other.

I wasn't saying that I agreed with the principle, just that the "raw" (I do so hate that phrase) does acknowledge the potential problem and has a solution for it. Just not a very good solution.

I'm not marrying a frelling dwarf!!!!

I don't DO dwarves.