Redirected from the binary poll Malachi tried, here's one that is more fair.

I'm sort of torn with answering this poll... On the one hand, I am answering a pseudo-technical question about the capabilities of the matrix. On the other, a philosophy of game play. In the end, I answered how I interpreted the use of the matrix in games that I play/run. This, to me, seem to be the best ratio of pure (googling) to literal legwork.

This poll doesn't prove your point that there is an imbalance in the RAW, because just like on this poll, it is ultimately the GM who decides what information can be found on the matrix. Also, the amount of information you can find in my game (for example) does not vary by a percentile rate, it varies by quality. I sincerely doubt this poll will accrue any reliable quantitative data, especially any that would prove more telling than the qualitative discussion we were having.

It would be nice if you could do a question that actually rotated the options. But this would be a better poll design

"The majority of legwork can be conducted on the matrix"

with 4 options

Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Agree
Strongly Agree

Although I voted 50%, my personal opinion as a GM is that whatever information that is available to the PCs via Contacts could also be available to the PCs through the Matrix.

I figure that the corps can afford to pay people to clean up information/spread disinformation so the Matrix sees limited usefulness with researching a target.

I disagree. A player may have a contact as a security guard in a company that can tell the PCs when their extraction mark comes to work and when he leaves, that he takes the tube except on Wednesday's, and that he's having marital problems. I just don't see someone in the SR world watching every wageslave's life and posting that info on some public site somewhere. Now, that information could be acquired by hacking into the building's security systems, the mark's Commlink, and the home's central computer... but that's not a simple Data Search test.

If all of that info could be found by spending a few minutes, or a few hours, or even just a few days of Matrix search, don't you think Shiawase, or Renraku, or NeoNET with their vast Matrix resources would have found everything they needed to know by now? Why would they hire runners? Want to know what ProteusAG's new product is going to be? Search the Matrix. Who just hit our top-secret R&D facility? Search the Matrix. What is Lofwyr really up to? Let's unleash an army of Agents running Browse 6 on that problem! Why? Because everything we need is just minutes away. Why does anyone walk to do anything anymore?

That can affect contacts as well. Humans are just as prone to misinformation as computers are.

That all depends on having a contact in the right place. Since you probably don't have that, you'd need to track down a security guard and bribe/convince him to share that info with you. And how do you find said security guard? By Data Searching the guard roster.

And hacking the guy's commlink is easy enough. What isn't easy is sorting through all his transactions to find what you need: the places he goes on a regular basis. Which, of course, requires another Data Search test.

I believe that Legwork can be 100% done on the Matrix, but the catch is that not all of it comes from Data Search. Virtual contacts, meetings in VR chats or through commcalls in AR are all valid options for doing legwork in/on the Matrix.

For my games, Data Search is often used to get specific information about something or to expand on things that you learn from contacts. The synergy between searching the Matrix and what your contacts (and friends of friends) know is how runners get a full picture of the situation. Or at least a more complete picture...

I would point readers to Runners Companion p. 129-131 for information about Virtual Contacts and Legwork.

Why would they hire runners? Same reason why they always hire runners. Deniability and efficiency. Since Lowfyr can pound the shit out of you, why hire runners to do it?

While it may be relatively easier to go to a contact to retrieve certain information, the thresholds for Data Search for the same piece of information may well be much higher. Some blogger may well stake out the tube and posting his vids on the Matrix, that's why you use Data Search. A sec guard may have posted on a Matrix forum complaining about this guy who is constantly late for work but stays late into the night for some after hours nooky. There can be the nosey neighbour that calls Lone Star about that couple living next door disturbing the peace with their noisy arguments.

But are runners efficient? Aren't runners a lot like contacts which are, according to some, expensive to upkeep, slow, and unsafe. Why wouldn't those corporations use safe, fast, reliable Matrix searches for all the information they need?

Cain has argued many times that contacts are spotty, expensive, require maintenance, insecure, and slow methods of getting information. The Matrix is always there, cheap, maintenance-free (at least by you), secure, and fast. Why does anyone talk to anyone else in the SR world?

I would expect something close to a normal distribution for the results of the poll, and that's looking pretty close to what we've got. But I don't think many GMs would make legwork 100% done with data searches on the Matrix, if for no other reason than it'd exclude any non-decker characters from contributing in the legwork phase of the particular shadowrun.

I generally care more about the outcome then the methods the players use. If that team has a good hacker/face they can get a lot of information from the matrix, most of it in some cases(heck many contacts only meet on the matrix). But if the team prefers to go about it the old fashion way, they can get what they need there too. As long as they get the info it doesn't matter where they get it.

For my games, because Matrix searches will not turn up any more information than what the runners or anyone else (like Mr Johnson) will get from their contacts. Depending on the Threshold for the Matrix Search, Contact Ratings and other factors, Contacts may be faster or more reliable, but the scope of information possible that is provided by Matrix Search is no more or less than that provided by Contacts.

All the "game time relevant" searches are roleplayed out in my game, usually face to face meetings. The rest is more or less narrated.

It all depends on the nature of the legwork and how classified such information might be on the matrix. I supposed even the matrix will suffter some of the same problems that are present today with information overflow, false tagging of information to proliferate it and so on. As such, i regard a deckes legwork as what he/she can find from online contacts, public nodes and subscription services without any particular hacking going on. Sure all the information might be on the matrix, its getting hold of it thats the issue. If you want to hack through every single rumor, hitting all the nodes that came up in your search you'll probably get the information, but by then the package might already have left the building you're hacking to get the blueprints of. As such matrix legwork (and regular legwork) is IMO what can be obtained easily and quickly. That also gives the GM the perrogative of controlling the amount of information that comes up in searches.

Hacking and Data Search can generally give you a good layout. It will not give you top secret documents, so lets not be over dramatic Malachi. A data search might give you a slightly out of date image, or you might be able to find the guard roster and do some cross checking to find out some of the guards habits, or even find a location of a zero-point facility that it actually let slip somehow. However you will still need to meet this guard, you will still need to bribe him to get into the facility, you will still probably want to do some recon on the area before hand. The matrix can provide a majority of the information you need on a run, but you will still need to do other different types of legwork to pull off certain runs. The biggest thing is how you have laid out your game, and what kind of power level you throw at your players. If they are knocking over gangers, and kidnapping people you will find out what you want to know through data searches. However if you want to know the layout of a zero-point facility that will probably take a data search, a grab & bag/interrogation, and then some recon, some light intrusion, and then you might have a good plan. Personally in the end though this is arbitrary and always up to the GM, but the matrix is everywhere and in my view of the SR world many corps practice information through obscurity. The fact is the matrix (information) is everywhere and if you want to look really really really hard you will probably find something on what you are searching for. People have comlinks, those comlinks touch the matrix on a constant level, there are ways to find out what you want to know through hacking and data searching.

I mean the idea that contacts will be able to pull all of this information how the hell will they do that? A loyalty 1 contact all that means is if you call them they won't hang up the phone if you call. I mean the guy at the local stuffer shack might as well be a 1-1 contact, because he will deal with you, but only because it's business. The pizza delivery guy on the other end of the phone trying to get you your pizza is a 1-1 contact and he will have no qualms selling you out if it meant some extra money lining his pocket. Maybe lets say you have a high loyalty high importance contact rating 5-5 corp exec from Renraku and you are doing a run on Aries. Why the hell would a high ranking corp exec who may not even be affiliated with the corporation you are trying to take down, or what have you, know about another corporations security guard having marital problems? I mean yes if you were specifically knocking over something that your contact would be aware of you could probably get some good information, but lets face it a data search in a cyber punk game makes a lot of sense.

Contact: "Oh yeah at a corporate exec lunch-in we were talking about how the underling of an underling was having marital problems and how easy it would be to bribe him, here I can give you anything you might want to deal with this run because of... um... handwave-ium."

Shadowrunner 1: "Insightful."

Our table has always dealt with contacts as a way to purchase items, or to move certain hot items that the party might not want to be involved with for a long period of time. Not as a "get you whatever you want whenever you want it because you happened to get four 6-6 contacts." You might have a good place to hide, or some leverage if you are in a tight spot, or they might buy that piece of art that you pried from that dead old ladies hands, and they will go to the wire for you, but hell there is only so much they could probably do, and for the most part if they can do it so can your party.

To be more precises: I'd consider Data Search in the matrix as the groundwork for the crucial legwork scenes - meeting contacts, bribing people, hacking secure servers, infiltrating a location, and so on. How well the runners do on those scenes will determine how good the legwork results are. So, actual data search rolls could be skipped.

Sometimes you need more then one batch of data to be able to piece everything together. Having a guard roster list tells you almost nothing. Having their credit history, where they go to blog on the internet, what kind of activities do they do (using someones transaction history) and various other questions are not just bundled into a single data search. There is also the big thing of if the players ask the wrong sort of questions they will find out nothing, and there will be a lot of dead ends when it comes to data searches. If the hacker data searches on a bunch of stupid obscure things they might get a whole bunch of data that is basically useless. However sometimes all you need is to do a data search to find out exactly what you want. That doesn't mean that you still won't have to do other things. Finding out a guards habits and where the best place you could go to grab him and replace him with your face dancing runner does not mean that you suddenly have to make no more rolls and have completed the run.

Wrong. How do you do that? Data search to find that places server, then have the hacker hack it, and pull the guard roster out.

This poll is rubbish, because it makes no distinction from data search & virtual contacts.

Hopefully I can do this without starting another back and forth.

The group I play with likes to handle this like any decent movie or novel dealing with espionage (I suggest Ronin and most of the Jason Bourne novels). The computer nerd always has the scene that goes over and over fotos and documents (this would be the face expressing what the hacker turned up). The on site info is still a little hazy because the targets have their own security experts and bodyguards attempting to protect them (other runners, corp assets, etc.) and require some hands on legwork. By the time a decent ID of the surroundings, the opposition, and the tools needed are all rounded up, the Hacker still has to assemble the gear and programs he is going to need for his actual part of the run. This is of course assuming that the team was hired to extract someone with an actual time frame, and not on the "eventually" time table.

Generally, the time restriction has always kept the hacker in our group from ever actually being able to do all of the legwork themselves. Other people might not play with as tight a time line, but I think it is crucial. In the wild world of 2070, the Matrix is flooded with info and connected to almost any/everything you could possibly need to screw anyone you wanted over. The obvious exceptions are those of the grid and those that are too powerful to hope to touch (AAA corp cornerstone figures, dragons, etc.). If the party wants, they could easily put their hacker in another state/country/continent hook him up on the right timezone, and simply have a backup on-site hacker plug in the proper wires/comlinks/portable networks. It is possible, not preferable, it just plays with different group dynamics.

Anyways, my vote was for 70% and that was because most of our runs have a strong, dedicated hacker character with the gear and programs to get boat loads of information within the time frame we need. We also count the sifting through false info and partial info as part of our legwork (that is why street sammies have knowledge skills). Just think on it. Thanks.

This isn't rocket science here. Yes, you can physically survey a target. Yes, you can hack a system to find files. But that's not what where the source of contention is here. According to your (as in the Dumpshock population at large) interpretation of RAW, can all Legwork (as typified by those little info-gathering chart doohickies with the topics and thresholds at the back of published adventures) be handled with a Data Search roll? That seems like a "yes" or "no" question to me.

EDIT

As far as missions goes, they quite explicitly state what you can do to get the info off those charts. Most of them do say data search is allowed. Some don't. One does the right thing, and allows specific (mostly crucial) info to be data searched, but the other info (usually just very helpful) must gotten through contacts.

I haven't picked up Ghost Cartels so I don't know if it uses Legwork Tables but On The Run did and was fairly specific. So let's carry that thought over into GM created adventures. Let's say a GM models his game structure after published adventures (full disclosure: I do this as it keeps things simple for me) and creates Legwork Topics. He sets a threshold to achieve a certain amount of information about a specific topic. Is, by RAW, the Data Search skill the only sure-fire way to hit those thresholds?

Well, by RAW, data search thresholds are 4x higher than normal. Easy tasks are a threshold 4, and so on. So, if you set a threshold 3 for finding the info, with a data search, it would be a threshold 12 on the extended test.

By RAW, you can go to a contact (GM decides which are appropriate) and he makes a knowledge + attribute test to see if the contact knows the answer. Then the GM decides how willing the contact is to give the runners the info. If the contact doesn't know, the characters can have him ask around, making a cha + connection extended test interval of 1 hour. Knowledge skills can substitute for charisma if appropriate.


If you're modeling missions thoug, they use a connectionsx2 test to see what info the contact can get for you. No time spent on it either.

Let me see if I can summarize Cain's beef with this in SR4:
1. The group should ideally use the method that gives them the best chance to achieve the maximum hits on every Legwork chart.
2. Contacts have knowledge of a narrow range of topics, the Matrix has knowledge of all topics.
3. Data Search rolls are Extended Tests, so they can continue to be rolled until maximum hits are achieved. Contact checks are a one-shot giving the player a limited chance to achieve maximum hits.
4. THEREFORE, Data Search tests are the clear-cut superior method to doing Legwork because the Matrix ALWAYS has the information, and (unless a Glitch is rolled) achieving max hits is only a matter of time.

Thus, in Cain's group the Hacker does all Legwork, rolling mountains of dice on every conceivable topic (he said in excess of 60 different topics in a game session), taking hours of gameplay time, while everyone else goes out for pizza. Cain's opinion is that this is how the RAW suggest Legwork should be done.

Others (including myself) disagree and believe that not all info is available on the Matrix, Cain believes that the RAW state/suggest otherwise. Thus, we arrive here at this poll.

The more I think about this, I'm coming to the conclusion that published adventures with those Legwork charts in the back are largely to blame for a lot of this. They encourage lazy, video-game like play style from the GM ("The book says you need to search for work 'blah' so I'm going to sit here until you say you are searching for 'blah'). It reminds me of those incredibly frustrating typing adventure games where you had to type almost endless variations of "LOOK AT THING" or "SEARCH THING" or some other special "key word" before the game would give you what you needed to continue. RPGs should avoid this formula at all costs and GM's should attempt to make the game flow in as "natural" a way as possible, involving all players at the table.


Ghost Cartels uses "adventure frameworks" rather than fully fleshed-out adventures and I like that much more. The "legwork" sections of the Ghost Cartels frameworks look like this:

I like this format because it forces the GM to actually do their job rather than staring at a chart and waiting for players to tell them the "magic word" and roll a butt-load of hits on their Data Search test. Down with Legwork charts.

Not quite, but close.

First of all, it's not exactly "my " groups, since I'm not the GM for all of them. I've also heard about a few people having the same problem here. It also doesn't take "hours", I've never even said that. My examples were 30 min-1hr. Still long enough for pizza.

Second, a distinction needs to be drawn between the "information gathering" phase of a run (legwork) and the preparation stage of a run (prepwork). Once you have a plan, you can unleash your face and others to get gear, meet people, spread bribes, and so on and so forth. Once you get there, the decker's role is substantially lessened. Some people are confusing this phase with legwork.

But when it comes to gathering information, the decker is king. You can amass a lot of data on a lot of things very quickly. Especially for the dozens of questions that players ask in both the prepwork and legwork sections of a run. I've had all sorts of crazy questions come up ("Where can I steal a snowplow?" is a famous one) and I expect lots more from the players ("Who makes their uniforms? Who does their laundry? What kind of soap do they use?")

In abstract I have used a bipartisan system wherein certain kinds of information have a primary gathering trait as either social or matrix. An example would be a run where the group has to find and kidnap a member of the Triads for whatever reason.

Certain kinds of information are available on the matrix if you look hard enough - things like call logs or purchase histories of known aliases. Generally speaking information gathered from running Matrix searches is of dubious utility unless the players either exert more skill checks or nuyen on the problem. They can find purchase histories but there is too much data to parse and they have no idea what they are looking at - there are just too many John Lee's out there purchasing stuff. If they pay someone a lot of nuyen, a data broker for example, they can get information that is significantly more useful - they actually will recieve some prepared information regarding their target (or I will have to make something up that will be useful on the spot).

Social information such as the low down on the most recent yakuza - triad gang war in detail beyond what can be found on the evening news is harder to get a hold of. Information which is most often held off the grid - contact names, safe houses, impending meets or buys etc. - are Social primary information gathering checks. These can be attempted by Matrix checks but I treat their thresholds as significantly higher in both hits and cost (time and money). Social networking, however, can reveal far more information, generally faster and with less cost.

A lot of what I do when I manage the information that my players can recieve has to do with prioritizing the difficulty, exposure and propogation of the information that they are seeking. Some things are held on public record with analogues of the Bureau of Land Management or the like. Others can be found if you dig deeper within other sources. Some information is simply not public domain. I generally handle a player going above and beyond with data mining to do a quick hacking run against a few nodes at rating 4-6 depending on the value of the information. He tells me what he is trying to do and where he is trying to find it, I think about it, maybe offer a suggestion... and then we hack.

But thats the crux of it to me. Hacking is what gets mission essential information. Social meets gets mission essential information. Rolling mitfuls of dice can get you helpful bits, but rarely anything else. I don't care how many hits you got.

Woah, hey now! I like Legwork Tables. But, yes, waiting for a player to say Today's Secret Word is absolutely not in the spirit of the rules. A GM should be flexible. I do like your analogy of the old text-adventure RPGs. That's completely counter to the organic style of live-action role-playing. I'm more in line with the notion that a game should be more improvisational theater than Choose Your Own Adventure. Or it should hold that illusion, anyway.


Agreed.



If players are making Data Search rolls for every mundane detail of a target, I can see how your game would bog down. The GM is requiring too many unnecessary dice rolls that add nothing to the game. I would suggest having the PCs create a list of questions they want to find the answers to together and the GM can make a fair determination of what the Data Search roll threshold would be in order to gather all of it. If there's a logical correlation between questions asked (ie: uniform tailors, dry-cleaners, soap manufacturers) that can all be summarized in one Data Search roll as that kind of information would all be equally easy to find. Now, which megacorp bred the target building's barghast security animals and which local cleaner does the guards' laundry would probably require more than one roll as those are probably differing levels of difficulty.

I'm too lazy to read all this pile of posts so I will just say it dependes on what you are looking for; things that generate hipe will have alot of coverage (even if little of it actualy is usefull), while other info are in some anonimous archive that only people that know where to look would find it and has strong security that must be cracked before you can get a hold of the prize. Heck some info might not be on the matrix at all, just think if you're looking for a squatter escaped from a lab (of which the parent corp know nothing of course) with some experimental bioware in him/her, and this nobody-ever-existed is laying down in Glow City, are you going to surf the matrix or to hand some cash to the Rusted Stilettos for the info (after it's proven riable)?

All in all I think it should be 50%, something for the hacker/'mancer, something for anyone with contacts, everything in the fate's hands (and GM's too).

That would help, except for the fact that the few times I've seen it happen (missions games, mostly) the team put together a laundry list of things they wanted the decker to Data Search for, then get up and go for pizza. Combined with switching attention, this trick does keep people from going on soda runs, but still leaves the decker as the centerpiece. When we hit the planning phases, this can be mollified by having players come up with the next question on the spot: "No snowplows? What about a bulldozer?"

I'd also say that while combining some things would work, there's a lot of information that shouldn't be combined. Who trained their barghests and what soap they use in their laundry are a good example of information that shouldn't be combined, no matter how easy it is to get.

Ah, now we're getting somewhere. I had never differentiated between a "legwork" section and a "preparation" section of a run. If you're defining "legwork" as simply "gathering mundane facts relating to things about the run" then, yes, your decker/hacker would dominate this portion. However, in my sessions this mundane "fact gathering" time doesn't take up very much time at all. When I GM if info is public and what I would call "trivially accessible" then I don't even make them roll for it. Suggest to your GM that he use the (very RAW) "buy hits" chart for the really easy stuff.

Another suggestion would be to do your legwork/preparation sections "topically" rather than in stages. So for instance if they have some plan revolving around the cleaning company, then do all the stuff relating to that part of the plan first. While your sneaky guys are breaking into the cleaning company's office to steal some uniforms, the Hacker can be off researching the next topic. That should help keep things moving and keep everyone interested.

The Commando GM should have combined questions of obviously equal sensitivity into one roll. Missions adventures are for conventions and are designed to be completed in a few hours at most. That was some poor management on his part. I also can't imagine that a reasonable group of players couldn't devise a set of questions for a Missions adventure that could be answered in a handful of Data Search rolls. I've been running Missions adventures with my group as filler games and my players have hardly ever needed to do any of the Legwork bits as they're very straightforward stories. I'd also say that those players who left the table were being incredibly impatient and borderline rude. As a GM I'd be very peeved if the group just up and left me alone with a single player simply because they weren't in the spotlight for a few minutes.


Agreed but that's the GM's fiat. If the group is getting restless, it might be time to combine Data Searching into fewer rolls.

The mundane fact-gathering takes time because of volume, yes, but legwork is more than that. This is where you amass your clues to plan your run. For example, in On The Run, you have to do a lot of Data Searching to figure out what disk you're after, and follow a trail of breadcrumbs until you reach Nabo. Once you've researched Nabo, or at least know he's received the email, then the whole team cuts loose with their weird and wacky plans. But until then, you're stuck asking questions into the electronic ether. I know what the book says, but that assumes that you'll have a contact who's even tangentally connected to obsolete music disks.

They players did have a contact who was more than tangentially connected to obsolete music disks: Mr. Johnson/Darius. The players also have fixers; and if they didn't one was provided in the form of Smiley. Fixers are job and info brokers and can usually provide whatever answer a team needs, provided the PCs have the in-game time to wait for a call-back. Fixers are uber.

As I said before, I don't like the published adventures' Legwork charts, I think they too often influence GM's to "stick to the script" rather than just having the adventure flow in a natural way (thus leading to the text-based adventure game scenario I described earlier). I've run On the Run 3 times now. The first time I ran it, I decided that the "Nabo" connection couldn't be made with a Data Search test. My player's didn't think any of their contacts could help (even though both had some fairly well-connected fixers/fences) so they attempted a Matrix search. When that turned up nothing, they got frustrated at the roadblocks until I essentially just told them to call their fixers. Bad GM'ing on my part, I will freely admit. The second time, the players (again) didn't think their contacts had any info on the music industry so they did a Data Search. In the interests of keeping the adventure going I let them discover the Nabo connection from the search and the session moved on from there (total play time: 90 seconds). The third time I ran it, my players were veteran SR3'ers and knew that Fixers/Fences would know about all interesting items for sale on the black market. They called the contact, I rolled a few dice for formality (I wasn't going to let the contact fail to know about Nabo, again, in the interest of keeping the adventure going), and then told them of the Nabo connection (again total play time: about 90 seconds).

Bottom line (and I think I've said this before): if the players need a piece of Legwork information in order to move the adventure forward, then let them find it. Doing anything else is just being a finicky GM, IMO.

Mr. Johnson was also very restricted in what information he'd give the team. Besides which, if he already knew about Nabo, why wouldn't he tell the team in the first place? It'd be in his best interest to do so. Fixers are fine, except they cost money, and they're not typically antique dealers. Smiley also doesn't have any knowledge skills relating to music.


Let them find it is fine, but as you pointed out, handing it to them on a silver platter is not good either.

Who says fixers cost money? That's not in the RAW, that's GM fiat. Smiley didn't have music knowledge but as a fixer he would have known someone who did.

Fixers costing money is a genre convention. And fixers are not omniscient. He wouldn't be guaranteed to know anyone in the music industry, or who deals in antique technology. If he did, that would essentially be the same as handing the info to them. But the bottom line is, fixers don't know everything and everyone. They have a large contact network dealing with a variety of information, but usually specialized in one or two areas.

The players, the Game Master, and to some degree the setting determine what the genre's conventions are, not the rule mechanics. And what genre are we talking about here anyway? It doesn't matter. All I'm concerned with in this discussion are the rules and there is nothing written that says if a PC wants to tap a fixer, said PC must pay.

Check out the write-up of the fixer on in BBB. To paraphrase, he's the center of a web of information. If he doesn't know someone with needed knowledge, he'll know someone who knows someone. That's where a Fixer's Connection rating comes into play. That's right in the Using Contacts section of the BBB. A specialization simply means he can get the info that much faster, not that he can't get it at all.

Just because he's in the center of a web, doesn't mean that web is all-encompassing. If a Fixer really knew everything, there'd be no need of Shadowrunners. Heck, the whole point of a Shadowrunner is to get things (like information) that you can't get any other way.

That On the Run example just shows that every shadowrunning group needs a Rockerboy.

Fixers are not the end all be all. They probably know some runners, and they know a way to make things happen. Do they do everything for free? I think I can answer that question with another question... Is this Shadowrun? Fixers charge, Johnsons charge, and everyone skims off the top. If a fixer hands you over free information you bet your ass you owe them a favor and it will probably demand more then the information they gave you... if they just want a "favor." That or you will pay them. They might be the center of a web that is attached to other webs and those are in turn... ect ect, but guess what? Your hacker could probably find out the same thing if they looked hard enough.

I just don't see fixers setting up runners with that kind of intel on good faith.

Hey, you all can flavor your games your way and I'll flavor my games my way; if I don't want my NPC fixers charging the PCs for every little thing that's my right as GM. However, how I or others view the setting of Shadowrun is irrelevant to this particular discussion.

My initial point stands: there's nothing in the RAW that in any way, shape or form states a fixer must charge PCs for information. Using the RAW Connection Rating rules, a fixer can find out whatever info is needed, if the GM so chooses. And I'm definitely not convinced that the RAW concerning Legwork are broken.

RAW RAW RAW! "I'm a monster!"


\m/ \m/

Thought all you needed was Data Search!

Love it!

That was Toturi, not me.

As Malachi pointed out, there are rules indicating that contacts must charge for information a great deal of the time.

As far as the rules being "broken", I certainly haven't said that. If you mean "broken" in the sense that theyre overpowered, I certainly haven't said anything of the sort. If you mean "broken" in the sense that they're totally nonfunctional, I haven't said that either. What I have said is that legwork is heavily biased towards deckers, often to the point of excluding the other players. No one's said anything to contradict that.

Honestly I think if loyalty would come into play this would be the time to make a call. Loyalty 1-3 is generally just biz and they will sell you up the river if they are handed money or pressured. A loyalty 4-6 will probably give you the information if you asked for free. Well I think it would make loyalty a little more useful as well.

That is not what the quoted rule states.