On Johnsons and Fixers. Everybody handles them their own way, but I'd like to see what other members of the community do.

Are you fixers permanently attached to the runners? Do they oversee a large talent pool of runners, and just happen to draw the runners out of it for a lot of jobs? Do they have corp affiliation? Do the Johnsons contact the fixers, give them the data, and have them contact the runners? Or do Johnson's contact fixers to set up personal meets with the runners?

Are you Johnsons corp affiliated, or do they sell their anonymous services to the highest bidder? Does a Johnson ever seek out a team of runners personally, bypassing the fixer entirely? Do your Johnsons take orders from someone in his corp, who in turn took those orders from someone else, and so on and so forth until you have a Johnson with a clear idea of what needs to be done but no idea who wants it done or why it's important?

Spill the beans, omae.

Johnsons come in all shapes and sizes. T'is why they are called Johnsons.

It depends. In one game, the major Johnson was my character's girlfriend. Who was a fairly senior KE manager who had our little security consultancy solve some "minor" problems. Others it seemed kind of random. But the main GM (other then me) tended to have a plotline running. The johnson's were almost always corp affiliated, except them they had scales and wings.

All of the above, depending on the specific Johnson/Fixer.

----Stream of Consciousness Post-----

Here's how it works in our games.

Johnsons can work through a fixer, or if they've had previous dealings with a certain person might call them directly.

Similar to how contracting works - I could go to an agency and get someone sent that fulfills my needs, but if I already know someone that I know can do the job - I might (depending on if I think I can meet their price range) call them and give them the first shot at the gig.

Fixers on the other hand, are like contracting agencies and the guy you know that knows everyone else. Sure they might keep a rolodex full of contacts, or they might be so well known that people come to them. They might keep a stable of people on standby (like temp agencies) or might only do open calls when a job needs to be filled.

That's my POV too, Smilin' Jack.

So far the fixers have been pretty constant as to whether they have stables or not it depends on their connection ratings. Sometimes they are just a friend who passes on info from someone they know in the biz when the word gets sent out for talent and sometimes it is someone who has a stable of 30 or 40 runners and they might get pulled in if the job calls for their talents. They are finally getting in fixers books as a team so their jobs are becoming a bit more tailored for their strengths. I'm trying to run things realistically so till they got a rep they generally just got pulled in on generalist jobs, now they are running specialist ones.

Chris

EDIT: Smiling Jack described things well.

Johnsons tend to be whoever they are-- they're the people who need the work done. If a corp has a guy they go to to get runners, he's more of a fixer that works for that corp, and intermediary rather than the employer. But that's not that unusual, being that the plausible deniability requires several layers. (Its entirely possible that runners won't meet the actual Johnson for a run until fairly late in their careers, and that most of the people that are hiring them for work are just fixers of another stripe.)

Fixers similarly come in all shapes and sizes. Some are like underworld temp agencies who try to match jobs to workers. Others are like Hollywood agents, they have a stable of talent and they try sell Johnson's on their various teams. (I have always wanted to have a fixer in the game like this, who thought of everything as talent and projects and said things like let's greenlight this baby, but I digress.) Some might back into fixing, they just know a lot of people and find that people come to them with stuff they need handled.

I tend to have fixers who specialize in particular areas, either geographic or cultural. A Godfather-like mob boss would be a fixer, people come to him with problems and he gets things done. Paulie from Goodfellas would be similar. They don't actually do anything but make sure things run smoothly and they get their cut. Fixers are the grease that keeps the shadow machinery running.

I have run games where the players are loosely connected and they do not really know their employers - the missions were just missions etc.

Recently I have established a central contact by the name of Saint-James that handles the majority of the players hiring and firing. Players started taking him in droves after I introduced him as an NPC a while back... now whenever a player sends me a character they just sort of assume that Saint-James knows them because Saint-James knows people.

This has afforded me several nice bits. Since my PCs often share a contact, getting into touch with one of them equates to getting into touch with all of them. As far as using Saint-James as a Johnson... his role is far more as a Fixer than anything else.

Johnsons tend to come in many different forms. I rarely have overlap in the hiring contact for the 'Runners. Bad business to create relationships and social networking ties that go too deep as a matter of course - sort of defeats the purpose of plausible deniability. Sometimes a special relationship develops, however, and a Johnson becomes a contat.

The advantages of having a well developed central Fixer type are pretty numerous. Placing a call to Saint-James while 'running can result in extra talent being contracted on an as needed basis, be used as a(n expensive) crutch for a lack of appropriate contacts. Having a central NPC that can link jobs and other contacts to your players, but remains emotionally and even somewhat professionally disconnected, has proven invaluable.

Generally speaking, though, the majority of the standard fixer types that my players know are contacts that we cook up together through some chatter about their character. They tend to be far more contextual than a wine-swilling-expensive-roast-duck-eating-¥10,000 suit-wearing type like Saint-James... More along the lines of an arms dealer or a low level fixer that runs out of the mob held Docks or what have you.

So, in summary, I keep the contacts character contextual, the Johnsons corporate and removed from the players to a certain extent and, by player demand, have a cool NPC that they use as a central hub for their nefarious night lives.

- der menkey

"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~Ernest Hemingway

I usually make fixers and Mr. Johnson the same person. I've never liked the idea that the Johnson goes to the Fixer who then goes to the runners who then go to the Johnson who finally pays the Fixer and then, if the run works out, pays the runners.

Instead, I usually just have Johnson be the point of contact for the run and the payment. I've never seen the need for a "central hub for ... nefarious night lives" as noonesshowmonkey put it above. Fixers still exist, in my world, but instead of getting you jobs, they primarily find and acquire gear or other stuff for you to spend your money.

Like virtually everyone else has said, Fixers and Johnsons come in all shapes and sizes, so smart Runners should plan on never knowing what the score is.

However, with that said the way I see it usually working is that Fixers tend to have pools of talent from which to draw Runners from, BUT the majority of them are more then willing to "loan" one of "their" Runners out to a another Fixer in exchange for either an additional cut off the top, a future favor, or both. However, a Runner should be very careful trying to sign up with multiple Fixers even if everyone on the team knows a different Fixer, good talent is hard to find in the Shadows, and it's not unheard of to kill a Runner to keep a rival Fixer from profiting. (In order to be a sucessful Fixer you have to be one evil SOB, everything and everyone has a price, you just have to be able to tell when that price is met.)

Generally I see fixers as team managers, the fixer's rep depends on the success of the running team, so it's in the best interest for the fixer to get 1) jobs that the runners can accomplish and 2) make sure that the info is good and that the team won't be double crossed

Individual fixers would vary of course, and some would be less trustworthy than others, and sufficiently greedy ones would certainly double cross a team, but for the most part it should be rare because in the heavily networked society of shadowrunners a fixer would be out of business if he had a bad rep.

Generally Johnsons are people who know a list of fixers, and need something done, not always corps though. It's their job to find some one who can get the job done for the least amount of money.

Individual Johnsons are as good or bad as they come, the anonymity is important. Any Johnson that is wearing a corp logo is doing it to throw you off of the real entity (corp or otherwise) that he works for.

Oh, and if the Johnson ever talks to the team directly with out talking to the fixer, it's a doublecross. Don't trust them unless it's through a fixer. Besides, dealing with out the Fixer cuts him out of the profits and makes him angry and would damage your rep.

A fixer is a guy who knows a guy. Maybe he knows a bunch of guys, probably.

People don't go straight to the runner unless they happen to know the runner personally or stumble across him in the street or...

They go to the Fixer. The fixer might have a team of guys that work for him, like a manager for a band almost, many fixers probably do have one or more teams they 'manage', but a good fixer won't really use those teams exclusively. See, its his job to get the right team. So he knows individuals, and he knows teams, and if he doesn't know YOU he probably knows someone who does. If there isn't a good team available for a job, a good fixer makes one, calls in favors and markers and eventually just lays cash on the table for going to the meet.

From the other end, he's also the guy who can find who wants what you are selling if you picked up something sweet. And he takes a cut, he takes a cut of every deal that crosses his plate.

The Johnson, on the other hand, is nothing more than the designated face of the employer. Sometimes he's the employer himself. Fixers are all well and good, but runners and corps alike want to 'see the merchandise' That's the Johnson's job. The Runners can check him out, he can check them out and everyone is happy. He's the fall guy if he reports that the team is good, then they turn and pull a keystone cops.

A good Johnson for a corp, one who does it full time that is, becomes something of a fixer himself. He knows a lot of Runners personally, and can pick his teams based on the need of the corp, cutting the Fixer out of the equation. Thats why long term Johnsons are valuable over anonymous new guys. The problem is, by that point they start accumulating a source of power that is wholey outside the corporate ladder. Presonal abuses of power by long standing Johnsons are a cost of doing business without the Fixer. The other cost is that eventually the Johnson't patron is going to become common knowledge. This leads, eventually, to Freelance Johnsons, who work for multiple masters. You might ask what, then, is the difference between a freelance Johnson and a Fixer?

Not much. About the only difference is that the Fixer almost never represents the interested party for a job. The Johnson, even Freelance, always represents the hiring party, and will often say as much.

so here's a thought, for GM's that like the the fixer knows that job takes side of things, do you also prefer running where the players each have a stable of characters to run? so that those indvidual characters are the ones that get the call, as opposed to every run needing jim, bob, janie and ru-paul to play?

Well part of the reason you have runner, fixer, johnson, and then corporation is that really the entire point of Runners is having a deniable asset. Honestly I can easily believe that given the right set up a coorperation would love to have a Johnson that really didn't know what the heck the real reason for a run was. Which given personafix programs I consider to be fairly obtainable. Also ever notice that a runners response to getting screwed is "Kill the Johnson" not "Screw the guy the Johnson works for". Also in the end Fixers exist because the corps are a mite worried about their Johnsons going 'native' and getting a bit too deep into the underworld which is really where most runners come from.

Typically there are not enough separation to make SR4 jobs really deniable. The operation would be just as deniable if was done by a special operations team working for the customer and they just blithely claimed they had gone rogue. There are not enough layers or a solid firewall between the runners and the actual client such that the runners can't lead to the fixer who leads to the Johnson who leads to the client. You'd have to run it more like an intel operation, with dead drops and anonymous cutouts, to make it possible to prevent tracing.

Personally yeah, I like the idea of using character pools, although I don't use them as much as I'd like to.

Dropping a bomb would probably violate the Corporate Interactions Act.

I would find that certain execs would be more prone, due to either personality, ambition, available resources, etc. to hire and use Shadowrunners. Now what would make lets say Jason Smith from Ares want to hire a Shadowrunner? Easy chummer, he wants to get something for nothing.

Now cred is easy to come by when you wear a suit and you have the right connections. Really, when the is not an issue and Mr. Smith has an opportunity to make someone look bad, himself look good and/or save his own hide without raising too many heads, his best bet is to hire those of us who are in the sexy and profitable like of work called Shadowrunning.

Now, its a rough world out there in the corporate jungle. Its hard to get noticed in the ocean of execs looking for their next big break. Now if Mr. Smith has the cojones to become Mr. Johnson and get his hands on the data, personnel, equipment or whatever, he can write his own check. Those who followed more conventional courses would be left in the dust, if the gambit payed off. It all depends on how smart the Johnson is and how lucky he got in getting connected to the right kind of talent. That is where your Fixer comes in.

Your Fixer is a real professional, get me? The good ones aren't the kind that care about your story, your hobbies or the name of your neopet, he just cares about who has the cred and who can get the job done. If a Johnson hooks up with a good Fixer, odds are that the Johnson is going to put more trust in that resource and go back again to get his problems solved by the likes of you and me, comprende? Therefore its in the Fixers best interest to keep the thing as hygienic as possible. He is the rubber glove that keeps the Doc Wagon medic from getting that nasty STD you caught in Aztlan. Its the layer that puts the deniability into the whole deniable asset contract. The Fixer is nameless and guiltless. He is as immaterial in the worlds eyes as the shelf that holds the product in the stuffer shack.

I mean seriously, if it was something the Johnson cared to get traced back to him, he would hire some over the counter merc or even call Jerry over in HR to bring in some security goons who like doing side work. The reason they call it SHADOW running is because it happens within the concealment of the fraggin SHADOWS. I am not a bloody contractor, I don't drekkin' fix your drywall. I steal, murder and sometimes do otherwise unpleasant things for money. You don't ensure that through Lloyds of London.

The smart Fixer and the smart Johnson and the even smarter Shadowrunner know that if the Shadowrunner makes a chingadera of their job that their gonads are going to be left swinging the cold Seattle air. That isn't to say that the smart Shadowrunner doesn't find out who they are working for or covers their bases, but the simple point of the matter is that the Shadowrunner, at the end of the day is the one left holding the bag and if the system works the way it was set up, Mr. Johnson is only left to clean up the aftermath and try to do some damage control if drek falls apart, not have a bullet put in his brainpan.

How does this work you ask? Its impossible for this to actually function right? Some exec comes into the Barrens and nobody raises an eyebrow? Ok, let me let you in on a secret old Coyote told me when I was flyin' Peyote. People only see what they wanna see, nest pas? This can happen because the corporations intentionally look aside. They know they the Shadows serve a purpose in their fragged up eco-system and leave it be. Its like the wild card in their whole evolutionary system. We exist because we serve a purpose in the system that is pretty much constructed and administered by the powers that be. I hate to rattle your Punk Rock sensibilities chummer but thats the case. Mr. Fixer might as well take a seat in the Mits cube farm, cuz he is working for the man. Why? Cuz he has all the frakkin money nimrod and they pay for the privilege of never having known you existed. We are simply whores and nobody introduces a whore to their mothers. It was Ronald Reagan that said "Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."

Kool Kat is an NPC Fixer in my game world and one of the best. He is known for helping out Shadowrunners new to the biz and helps them get established for a percentage. He knows how to get the missions and who is the best for which job. If he thinks you will work you get the call. So I basically use him as the mission generator. I present the players with a list of mission possibilities and they select which one they want to run for the day. Seems to work very well.

I'm not doing anything different than what has already been posted. Johnsons, normally don't contact the runners directly unless they personally know them. So, they are going through fixer contacts.

Fixers are the ones that have a network of contacts and most of the time, have a very good relationship with a runner (or multiple runners). Runners go to the fixer if they are looking for a job, want to buy/sell gear or for information. Fixers come to the runners when they have a job to offer, normally by a Johnson, so they set up the meet.

We haven't had to get anymore complex than that in our games.

Fixers are pimps, Johnsons are the johns, runners are the talent.

In keeping it real, one thing to remember is that supplying the Talent is just one of the services a Fixer provides.

While a Fixer will often specialize depending on his connections, in general a Fixer fixes things.

You have a need he provides the solution through his contacts.

Need some fake ids or passports?
Need some mil spec explosives?
Need some special gear for a run smuggled across a border?
Need some Cred laundered?
Need a safe house?
Need an introduction to someone or tickets to the big game?
Need to unload some loot and have it disappear?
And so on.

And he gets a cut from both sides of every transaction.

Established runners on their home turf will have direct access to much of this through their contacts but much of the savings in not providing the Fixer his cut will be lost because the Fixer is dealing in considerably more volume then any single group of runners. Being a volume customer he will be getting better selection, prices and faster access.

Having your Fixer actively turn against you has to be a runners worse nightmare because he knows so much about you and has so much chances to either set you up or sabotage you.

Course a Fixer's reputation and his connections are his most important assets.
Lose either one and he will be dropped by everyone.

@kzt

I was under the impression that the entire shadow economy was built on the idea that each and every corp is, at some point, going to wish they had a way to operate outside of the rules.

Fixers provide that service, by connecting Johnsons to 'runners anonymously (or not so anonymously, depending on your fixer).

There are dead drops, encrypted communications, and webs-within-webs. The corp needs something done, the Johnson gets put in charge of it ("We didn't authorize him to use company assets on a private project!"), the Johnson finds a Fixer ("Hey man, I just pass along information, nothin' else.") who then gets a pool of 'runners together ("Hey, someone needs something done, and you're the man for the job. Huh? How the hell should I know who wants it done, all you need to know about is on this disc and this shiny certified credstick, yafollow?)

If the corp catches the runners, they might be able to turn in the fixer. If the corp gets a hold of the fixer, the Johnson might possibly be detained. If they get the Johnson, he has no idea what's going on, and if he does, the corporation apologizes for the 'rogue execs' actions, 'fires' him, and gets hit with a fine.

At least, that's how I see it.

Which is reasonable, but you get the same penalty if it's a corporate special ops team. "They must have gone rogue. Sorry about that. We'll put a note in their personnel file about that."

I suppose it does go both ways.

Though it's better if the acting party ('runners in the case) has nothing to do with the corporation. It's just another degree of separation.

"Your special forces team went rogue? Well, cease all operations with the unit as a whole until you can figure out why they went AWOL."

vs.

"A rogue executive? Slap him on the wrists, move on. Also, pay us money."

One of the things I've enjoyed over the years as a Shadowrun player is watching things like this show up in the lexicon. "Fixer" was never really that common a term-- anyway, I'd never heard it when I started playing SR, although I was in high school-- and nowadays George Clooney in Michael Clayton and Peter Krause in Dirty Sexy Money are both described as fixers. Of course, they're both lawyers. (Makes me think of a tagline from somewhere, maybe Blackjack's page, Send Runners, Guns and Money, the shit has hit the fan.)

In Cyberpunk 2020, "fixer" was another character type like netrunner, razorboy or nomad. I never played CP2020, but I guess fixers were pretty much the faces. A face in SR-- the guy who knows a lot of people, gets things for people-- is a lot like a fixer who rides around with you. Like Rusty in Ocean's 11, to pick an example out of a hat.

the first, last, and final word on fixers.

and i know the phrase has been adapted many times in many places by many people, but it never hurts to remember your roots.

Hm. The OED traces the term back to 1885. Its more "legitimate" use has usually been in a political context, but never a term someone (especially a politician) would have used in public even ten years ago. People do now, but that's a sign of the times.

There are two standard concepts for fixers: The American fixer, who is a lawyer or some very influential person with a limited client base; and the Iraqi fixer, who is a freelance aid who is useful (necessary, even) to connect a person (usually a reporter) with sources, information, items, get you through checkpoints or particular neighborhoods (or knows someone who can), and so on. They are like personal hosts, only a lot of the people they pay off are armed.

Fox and the Hounds

This is an interesting portrayal of a fixer, as most gamesmasters seem to portray the fixer as the cheery benevolent polar opposite to the callous manipulative Johnson. I actually used Fox as a fixer for a character I GM'd.

Sounds more like a businessman--like William Ager when he ran Resource Adjustments for Fuchi America/Novatech.

BTW, I really did mean ten years ago in my previous post. The first person who really got tagged with the term was Vernon Jordan.