One often ignored aspect of Shadowrun is the existance of Corp Script, that is money issued by the Megacorporation usable only in corp stores. Most of us are at least peripherally aware of it, but most of us rarely think on it or use it.

Of course, one aspect of having corp script has to be some measure of exchange. While certainly, Aztechnology doesn't want MCT corp script in the pockets of it's employees, doesn't want them buying MCT products, there is actually a number of good reasons to allow a former MCT employee (or the family members of an MCT employee shopping in the Arcology or what have you) to turn in their MCT script, or nuyen for that matter, for Aztech Script. And then there is nothing stopping a corp that manages to aquire a stockpile of a rival's corp script to use it in economic perfidy.

The important part is the ability to buy Azzie (or whomever...) script for nuyen.

Now let me turn your attention to the very real phenomenon of Gift Cards.

You are paying real money for money only useable to buy products from a specific business. And good luck trying to get change in real money if you don't overspend on the gift card.

Enjoy the Holidays....

You do know that actual corporate scrip has long existed in real life in various forms, ja? Wooden nickels and all that.

I think corprate script is old, really old, like I'm sure the romans had it.

Anyway, there is actually no reason for a company to trade out another companies script for their own, here is why:

You go and give a corp 10 for 10 worth of script. If for some reason you never use that script, the corp has just made 10 as pure profit. Thus, if I was Aztech and my emploies had Novatech scripit I would -encourage- them to go spend it, because unspent script is pure profit for Novatech. This is why companies love selling script/gift cards so much. There is a good chance that the money will never be spent, and even if it is, the person will either have to add more of their own money, or be unable to use the entier gift card. Thus gift cards are like freaking gold mines for companies. Thus corps would want to spend other corp's script, because it just means profit for that other corp otherwise.

AH: I made no claims to the newness of corp script, only that Gift Cards, something that we see a lot of around the holidays (now) are a form of it.

Karadan: You suffer a lack of imagination and your pants are stinky. Actually, I would suggest to you that while, yes, unspent corp script is essentially banked money (insamuch as Gift Cards are a great profit generator... only 75% of them are cashed in they tell me....), Corp Script, as it exists in 2070 is a slightly different animal, and there is no reason to suspect that the corps are backing their script with 'real assets'... the gold standard of yore if you like. Thus, holding onto an amount of a rival's corp script could be used, possibly, for judicial market tampering. Never mind its value in 'black ops', handing an infiltrator genuine corp script to use on their mission, using it as a template, and then mixing it in with, for vast amounts of counterfit bills.

Then there is the potentially long, involved, discussion for exactly what corp script DOES for the profit line of a corp (as compared to a means, dubious at best, of keeping employees chained to 'The Man'.)

...transit tokens/ticket books/passes also come to mind.

hell, anything thats made of a material that have no real value on its own can be seen as a kind of corp scrip.

There's also the Metrocard here in New York (which, once again, the MTA is screwing with).

All those supermarket loyalty cards count under some of the definitions in this thread. They're annoying. Some years ago I went through a phase of seeing what names I could get away with registering those cards under. I remember I managed to get a Hugh Jorgan and my mate managed to get a Tesco's card with Penelope Pittstop on it. I think the rest we never heard back from, though.

The interesting question about corp scrip in Shadowrun, would be is it inflationary or not? If it were tied to shares in the company in some manner, you would have a "gold standard" of a kind. Hmmmm. Internal economics of a corporation. Material for thought, there.

I think the book that probably went into the most detail on Corp Script was the old SR2 book who's name I can't recall. Maybe Corporate Download? A friend of mine had it and it seemed like it went into a lot of detail on the various aspects of finances useful to runners. I seem to recall Corp Scrip fluctuated with the vicissitudes of the market, but I don't know how much of that was the book and how much we came up with. (This was like 10 years ago, people.)

...actually an NPC baddie from my RiS campaign.

I'm not sure corp scrip is roughly equivalent to a gift card. If I go and buy a $10 gift card, the value of that card is still tied to the value of the dollar. If 9000% inflation hits the dollar before I spend it, SOL. On the other hand, corp script is a separate currency, so if I trade in 10 nuyen for 10 nuyen worth of azzie script, if the nuyen goes to hell, that script's value is retained.

This of course presumes that the corps set different prices in nuyen and scrip. If I'm wrong about that, then this means nothing.

There will always be a blackmarket for different kinds of corp script with fluctuating exchange rates included. Why? Because some runners get paid in script and then can't or won't try to purchase anything with it. After all, most smart criminals (and even some dumb ones) know to launder money before using it.

Our play session for That Other Game™ feel through due to sick kids so I have some time to try to put some exchange numbers together this evening.

Well, not alot of detail is provided (maybe in corprate enclaves? I haven't read it), but I would assume script is tied directly to the value of If I get 10 worth of script when burgers are a nuyen each, then all the sudden burgers are 10 I'm sure it will still take 10 script. After all, you only gave them 10 why should you suddenly be able to get 100 worth of burgers with that?

Plain and simple it makes sense from a 'cover our asses' standpoint, and it is just plain simpler to say X costs 50 will that be cash or script? After all, if something costs 100 or 50 script, what happens if you only have 30 script? You can't use your script in that case, since script is supposed to be worth 1 but in this case it isn't, confusing huh? Much easier to just let 1 script be 1 and be done with it.

Oh, and I know electronic stuff is counterfitable, but it is more difficult then paper money, especially since I'm sure that the company keeps track of every script issued to spesificly prevent that sort of thing, just like modern companies keep track of their gift cards.

Yeah, the main book makes it pretty clear on page 38 that a black market scrip trading scene exists and that there's speculators out there willing to take advantage of it, leading to a sort of underworld stock exchange. Personally though, I wouldn't get within a country mile of such a thing; just imagine the opportunities for insider trading and skullduggery in general.

Whip: Your dystopia seems to have the core assumption that the corps always win, certainly a supportable assumption.

I work from a more cynical idea: no matter what anyone does, the criminals and dirty dealers always come out ahead. The corps are just the biggest dirty dealers of them all.

But here is how I view it regarding counterfiting: Remember a decade ago the US started printing all this new, pretty money? A big part of that was preventing counterfitting. Within a month of the new twenties coming out some punk kid in highschool was caught printing money off the laser jet, and I can't buy a damn thing without someone running a funky pen over my bills to check their validity.

If MCT decides to invalidates all their old corp script for new corp script, they have to have a 'changeover period', where they replace all the stuff held by their employees. To do otherwise is to breed instability within the ranks. Thus they create a window for the shadow market to swap out script, very little of it actually gets 'lost', and they create additional value for it in the shadow market (vigorous trading as some people will be buying it up cheap from those desperate to unload it, so it can be swapped out).

As for the banked money comments: That's true for purchased script, but I rather suspect the corps aren't backing most of their 'house money' with real money, they just print it and hand it out as needed, meaning they can have inflation problems, just like now. Unlike the government, the Corp can self correct it's market by 'destroying' spent money (paychecks, for example) as fast as it comes in, rather than recirculating it automatically. They can also closely control the value of goods and services in the corp stores, thus if they find that they are 'overpaying' most of their employees this quarter and are going to take a bath, they don't actually cut pay but raise the prices of everything until their script accounts are in the black.

This means naturally that corp script has its own accounting division, and is probably just as valid (if not more valid) a target for runs than any other division of the corp. Some black market script traders wind up with several million in MCT script? Why not pay some runners to bust into MCT's Script Accounting Division to insert data to increase its value in relation to the Nuyen for a few hours so they can unload it?

Which is one way to use stockpiled script against one's enemy. Unspent script is 'banked', sure. If it had real value. But exchanging it in large batches for real nuyen is going to hurt the local economy of the Corp (not the wider extraterritorial economy, that would require some pretty major shenanigans, the sort that runners are hired on both sides over months to pull off or stop...).

Significantly delayed from my original timeframe, here is my suggestion for a black market scrip exchange:

Figure out the scrip that the player want to exchange. If they are looking to trade more than one, pick the larger amount.

Roll a d6 and set the primary scrip to that value. Reorder the attached list accordingly.

1. Ares
2. Fuchi
3. S-K
4. Yamatetsu
5. Renraku
6. Aztech
7. NeoNET
8. Horizon

For the ranking set the exchange rate as follows:

1. 1.15
2. 1.10
3. 1.05
4. 1.00
5. 1.00
6. 0.95
7. 0.90
8. 0.85

Each net success on a negotiation test allows moves the exchange another 0.02 in favor of the winner.

For example:

The players have Horizon scrip they need to trade on the black market and I roll a 4. The reconfigure list would look like this:

1. Ares - 1.15
2. Fuchi - 1.10
3. S-K - 1.05
4. Horizon - 1.00
5. Yamatetsu - 1.00
6. Renraku - 0.95
7. Aztech - 0.90
8. NeoNET - 0.85

The negotiation test goes in favor of the players to the order of three successes so they can get 1.06 nuyen for each unit of scrip.

If they wanted to then trade it for Ares scrip for some reason they could trade it for:
Horizon (1.06/1.15) = Ares. (This assumes that the negotiation on Ares scrip was a push.)

Edited to correct the spelling of scrip.

I'm not really sure what you're getting at Spike since everything stated in your post is pretty much part of my core assumptions; Runners could very easily become involved in the sort of shenanigans and money changing required to bilk the system. When I say the big boys, I mean groups like the corps, Yaks and Mafia; those people out there who have the resources and wherewithal to take advantage of a change in the wind and bilk those who can't afford to put their money to work for them. Remember that the corps are working both ends of the market; when MCT creates a rush to unload MCT scrip for pennies on the dollar, it's the Yakuza who are right there to take all the inflated scrip out of circulation on MCT's behalf.

Your post seemed to be a hugely detailed defense of how the corps would prevent the sort of shenanigans we are talking about. I agree that they would attempt to mount such defenses, but from what I read, I disagreed on the effectiveness.

Maybe I misread?

One thing that I see as a truism of the human condition is that no matter how large, how powerful an organization becomes (benevolent or malevolent) they simply can not prevent criminals from existing, from corrupting the system. Corp Script is a system that is more likely to be abused and corrupted than not, simply because we are dealing with money. Add in the complexity of multiple players (each Mega...) and that just means it becomes even more susceptable...

Actually, under Stalin and the Nazis my understanding is that common criminals were pretty scarce. The entire government was a giant criminal conspiracy but the odds that you'd be mugged on the street were pretty low, much lower than the odds that you'd be hauled into Lubyanka by the NKGB over reports from the block warden that you failed demonstrate enough enthusiasm when they played the national anthem.

@Alex

That would seem more in line with a legal money changer. A admit i know nothing about exchange market but i would think that runners getting 50% back on the would be closer to the norm

@ D Minor

Feel free to tweak the numbers if you like it better.

Having lived outside the US for two years and recently traveled to Canada for business, I can tell you that exchange rates are pretty steady no matter where you are in the exchanging country. I lived in Peru for two years and the official exchange rate just before I came back was 3.478 "Nuevo Soles" (yes, they went to three decimal places) to 1 USD. At any given kiosk I could get between 3.472 to 3.475 "Nuevo Soles" for 1 USD.

As you could guess, the difference allowed the money changers to make something on each trade. However, that rate was 10USD bills and larger. A 1 USD bill only got around 3.00 "Nuevo Soles" because ones were so hard to give back to people.

I would imagine that the bulk of the script in SR would come from other runners who need to launder it in some way. That is why I have the highest value fluctuate. As to why I think the runner could get parity (or better): the script is still good to someone, perhaps the Mob or the Triads or maybe even another Corp.

No, they're not. I butcher them all the time and likely will continue to do so.

I'm in a campaign set in Oakland (east of San Francisco) during the Saito occupation. The Resistance issues a scrip, to provide the local economy with currency that doesn't support the Japanese Imperial State nor subject to its manipulations. Slag term is "acorns" since those are the fruit of oak trees; a new player joined the group, brought in their PC as having just moved from Seattle, was offered "a thousand acorns" and turned it down, wondering if he was dealing with squirrels.

Ever used UCAS, CAS, Tir or PCC currency instead of nuyen, in a campaign? One can assume that those currencies are pegged to the nuyen, same as Panamanian dollars are pegged to US dollar.

A fake SIN of the appropriate corp helps one spend the scrip, and if you quickly use your scrip to buy, say, ammo, then you'll have something tradable in the shadows no matter what the corp does to prices or redeption policies. If not every corp sells ammo, then replace that with medical supplies from Evo, high-response chips from MCT, spirit binding materials from Wuxing, etc.

Speaking of which, the ammo costs seem broken to me; yes, the fancy ammo should be expensive, but light pistol ammo should be a lot cheaper than the listed cost... is there a lead shortage due to all the ammo expended (and not recycled) in the conflicts of the 2040s, 2050s and 2060s?

:DMy piont is that the Mob and Yacks arn't banks. They don't give loans at prime nor do they launder money for a few % . I have no problems with ur table other than it's geared more for an above board bank than black market exchange.
And i appreiate the work and time u put into it.

and down with paragraghs. they're way to over rated. that and grammmer

That's the best Roman culture joke I've heard since the high school Latin class where I had that brilliant, yet perverted, teacher, Moon-Hawk.

Also, is it "scrip" or "script?" I used to know this, but now that I'm all grown up and have stopped learning, I'm unsure of myself. I should probably learn this if I'm going to start paying my players in it again (I used to in 2nd ed., but that was when we had Corporate Shadowfiles--handy book with tons of useful info, but I took it for granted, and didn't memorize enough about what it says about how corporate scrip works).

According to dictionary.com scrip is the paper money and script is writting such as "a script for a play".

It's 'Scrip'. The term has existed in history, and company scrip has a pedigree reaching way back. For instance, in post-Industrial Revolution England, factory workers would often be paid in chits that were redeemable at company shops, instead of being given cash. It tied them to the company so that they couldn't afford to leave. So yeah... gift vouchers don't really count. Unless said gift vouchers are given to employees in lieu of pay (redeemable at any shop owned by the parent corp, including their supermarkets!).

Scrip is also the word that's been used in Shadowrun forever.

Not that that has any bearing on this thread or anything.