So yeah,

I ran a mission, and afterward they went back and pretty much looted every body for all the gear they could get... how should I dissuade this type of behavior? I mean I don't mind an occasinaly looting, but now the group has like 4 extra ares alphas and a bunch of frags, and an extra thousand rounds of ammo.

-Josh

no real way to do that aside from not giving them the time or simply upping the pay for the run . .
if they do it with high pay, then just simply do not give them the time to do looting runs like that. .
have lonestar or a corp swat team be on their way . . mages/spirits and or drones can be there in
like . . seconds O.o

I notice that you didn't mention any cyberware, bioware, or just plain ol' spare organs. This tells me that you do not, in fact, have any sort of problem. Call back when they're hocking other people's used livers.

Stolen guns leave traces, ballistic testing will confirm if it has been used in several places. Using stolen guns from a corp for example can give more than once kind of trace:
-RFID tags (Passive ones)
-Ballistic Profile

Ammunition could actually ALSO have RFID tags in them due to being so small. Most of them might be destroyed on impact but is otherwise a good way of seeing if stolen ammunition have been used.

Stealing everything not bolted down is a sign of two things:
1. Amateurs
2. Runners DESPERATE for equipment

...And their rep will follow suit.

Stolen goods is usually not worth much cash due to above notes and will not get them much since I have a feeling that most fixers have standard guns.

Keep heavy ordinance (Assault Rifle, FA-Shotguns and above) outside of military units. Security guards have at best SMG's for the really heavily guarded places and a sidearm and a baton (tazer batons perhaps).

Boobytraps

Let each corporate owned weapon have a self destruct that activates once it gets ouside signal range of the corp/building/node in order for them to stop theft.

Another solution is TIME. If they have time to stop and stripsearch each and every guard/dog/civilian/gnat during a run then the police/runner team/oppossition etc have time to intervene.

The best run is in/out in as short time as possible with noone being the wiser that someone actually WAS there.

Time. It takes time to loot bodies. It takes time to load up the van with all your stuff. It also gives that guard who was just unconscious time to pull his sidearm underneath him so when you turn him over he will have a gun pointed at the perp's face.

It also takes time to sell the junk and solid contacts to do so. It also takes time to clean up after using the same rounds stolen off one security guard in another run. They start putting together a media sexy profile and they are on the news. When they are on the news the ADA is breathing down Lone Star's neck for results. Results involve a task force and SWAT and the time you notice SWAT is either when they ask you to come up with your hands up and if they decide to cock their weapons the sniper on the roof will pull the trigger and the leader will discover what red pumpkin juice looks like.

Well like with any behavior modification think about the motive. As Stahlseele mentioned pay is an issue. IMO the pre written missions pay an insanely small amount. There are several threads floating around about stealing cars and using that as a bench mark for runs. That line of thinking establishes 5000 as per runner as the minimum amount that is worth getting out of bed for. Stealing a crappy car from a crappy neighborhood and moving it is trivial for a 400bp runner. That will get you around 5k after you factor in the RAW minuses for it being used, and hot. Stealing a nice car from a descent neighborhood is much harder, but still very easy on the scale of what runners do. That can easily get 10-15k. While very few players are doing this kind of math in there heads if you aren't giving this kind of pay out clever players will think of all kinds of ways to make way more money than running. What's worse is that lots of characters have to break character to keep running and stay with the team. This might not be the issue, but when you said mentioned the team having a couple extra alpha's a bunch of frags like that was some kind of problem. If you are trying to keep the players on that tight a budge the face will just go turn a couple tricks, while the hacker bags a couple drones, the mage influences someone into emptying there bank account, and the B&E specialist steals car.

Another way to fix the issue is make it harder to move the stuff. Fixers don't like working with insanity hot merchandise. They especially don't like dealing with insanely hot /cheep/ merchandise. It is isn't worth the time or the risk. Also just like runners are looking to move up and get bigger runs, fixers are looking to move up make bigger deals. No way are they going to keep setting up deals to move lightly shot armor out of bulldog for the next ever.

lastly if your players are having fun looting let them loot. Make the be the challenge and the pay out. Savaganging is a very legit way to survive in a cyberpunk setting

The collect weapons and keep them? No problem. Collecting weapons doesn´t even register on the vulture scale.

Why should you dissuade it ?
Its just some weapons they pilfered ,nothing more (and by the way ; you as a GM gave 'em the Guns & Ammo )

JahtaHey
Medicineman

I think it should be dissuaded because while it isn't a problem now, i don't like the idea of them having a full armory of stuff so they never have to buy gear again lol. The particular run they weren't really pressed for time so I didn't see a reason that they couldn't loot everyone, but next time this will not be the case.

-Josh

Why don't you like your runners to have lots of guns so they'd never have to buy those pieces of gear again? Do you routinely equip your guards with high end weapons?

If not, I do not see why not. Again as quite a few posters have pointed out, you do not have a problem. Your problem begins when your PCs loot your NPCs' cyberware and other expensive but commoditised hardware.

I don't see a problem, either. If you really want to, and they haven't done anything at all to "launder" the guns, you can have police or corpsec start tracking them through ballistic profiles as they use their loot. Otherwise, if they just keep the stuff as trophies or do their "due dilligence" by wiping RFID tags and switching barrels, I see no problem at all with this. They've earned the loot. Let them spend their money on something other than guns.

An old mantra around my table, regardless of game is "The GM will provide." If you don't want the players to have an armory of high powered weapons, don't put them into play. It's an understood rule in my parts if the GM puts the shiny objects within out sights, it's fair game for loot. Heck, most of the ammo we have is looted. This is as much of a precautionary method for avoiding getting shot in the back when Joe Security wakes up as it is for offsetting the cost for spent rounds. Luckily we don't get into arenas of ware snatching, that's when you have problems.

If it's really an issue with your game, downgrade the weapons they're using and don't put out as much ammo. Just don't forget to put in a nice piece of gear every now and again to offset expenses or to give upgrades to their used equipment. Also, extra mooks are a nice way to compensate for security not having the latest and greatest Assault Rifle or LMG. Cannon fodder is cannon fodder, they're just there to slow you down. No need to equip them to the 9's. Unless you're kicking down the doors of a AAA's high security location, smaller corps and AAA office facilities are probably outfitting their security from the lowest bidder to cover a certain level of threat and not every location is set up to handle an assault team of highly trained shadowrunners. Your mileage may vary, but it's something to keep in mind.

Would a corp be able to lockout a weapon if it's not within the signal of the building?

Sure, why not. Of course, if you're going to do that, it'd be more logical to go with a biometric ID pad on the gun, so it can only be fired by the registered owner. I mean, what's the point in investing in a lock that makes guns not fire outside corp property? Someone can still pick it up and kill one of your own guards. It makes very little sense to disallow a gun to fire outside of an area. Make a lot more sense to disallow it to fire within an area, in fact. But whatever, just go with biometric safety. It's in the rulebook anyway.

That sounds pretty good, what page is it on in the rulebook?

As with most of the others, I just don't see the problem here.

They should, the problem is that all it takes after that is some hacking.

I can really see that corporations and security companies don't want their hardware used against them and most of all not used at all by someone not their personel.

A small proposal just for fun:

Standard Corp Weapon Hardware
Biometric Safety
Boobytrap (Self Destruct)
Safe Target System
Agent Rating 1 (Loss of signal activates self destruct)

Oops sorry, not rulebook. It is "Advanced Safety" from Arsenal, p.32.

EDIT: To note though, it's true you are still just one easy hack away from disabling that. The only way to reduce looting, if you are so inclined, is to not give the runners time to loot. Backup should always be on it's way. Runners should live up to their namesakes.

Yeah, i know, thanks a bunch I appreciate all the help & advice!

I don't see any problem with PCs collecting arsenals for one simple reason. It doesn't matter what guns you have at home; it only matters what guns you have on you. Spares do diddly squat unless you have extra arms.

And in the unlikely event that several of your PCs spent the BP required to be the suxtupple-armed Avatar of an Indian god, then by all means let whem tri-wield Ares Alphas to their hearts' content. If not, just remind them that they can only fire one gun at a time.

/Thread

So the hordes of desperate sinless didn't loot these things while the runners were off doing the rest of the mission?

There are other vultures, jackals, and the occasional lion.

When you start to steal things from a corporation that you weren't paid to steal, you just made the run personal. Generating personal vendettas against corporations is the easiest way to encourage them to spend more time tracking you and making your life miserable.

You must view yourself as a tool and nothing more to your employer and your target. The reason why we have old shadowrunners like Fastjack is that they never made a run especially personal unless they had reason to.

No because while where they were running was in the barrens, it was a secret warehouse that they needed to learn the location of, so the only people inside were the runners and the oppostion.

-Josh

Oh I don't know about that... of the few I've run for my players... they've managed to make a hefty sum... especially when in the third one the sam made a hail mary shot and disabled the chopper pilot with SNS just as the Technomancer finally managed to crack her commlink and take over the chopper and order it to land... 20% of a multi-hundred thousand Nuyen helicopter is a nice bonus

No one heard the fight and snuck a look to see what they could steal eh? If there was no one around to keep out, why did the secret warehouse need security? Obviously security wasn't meant to keep runners out.

My GM was always kind of stingy with the pay for the runs, so looting weapons and such was really part of us paying the bills. And yeah, my group would take bodies to sell the cyberware as well. But if you want to discourage it, then make it so your players can't loot the bodies (have to get the hell out of dodge after a firefight), or make the run pay enough that it's not worth their time to loot. And if you just chase them away from the loot every single time, the players will eventually get pissed that they're not making enough money, so you have to make sure that you balance the reward and punishment too.

I just told players how hard or time consuming it can be to fence things, the difficulty of RFID tags especially in corpgear, and the extent to which up and using it can be traced via biometrics, bullet mechanics and the like. They tend to consider it not worth the risk to steal stuff unless its really badass and even then they're usually too paranoid to use it until its been signifigantly vetted by the appropriate techie which can take weeks.

And no one called for backup? After a run, the team should know that mre heat will be coming, usually in larger quantities. Lone Star, extra corp security, more Mafia soldiers, or what-have-you, *something* should be following up on a group of people getting wiped out.

On looting.

Generally opposition will have inferior gear. For example most guards won't be firing EX explosive and APDS. And they won't be firing from the best kitted out and gyromounted weaponry (and if they are the runners should be sweating the situation).

So looting of basic stuff is just a little extra cash for a little extra bother. I don't know how many players you have. But after the reductions for it being hot, used and figuring in the fences percentage that should only be about an extra grand per player.

Going after the big ticket items however is when runners cross the line.

As sort of mentioned before generally runners survive their exploits against megacorps because it doesn't help the bottom line to take them out. You'll have spent money, and the corp that had you hit will just hire somebody else next time so they don't care at all.

But when runners start jacking hundreds of thousands of nuyen in kit, or dissecting people? Suddenly it's personal and a message needs to be sent. Also the runners will have the items in question a while or have the cash from them.

I strongly advise to all GMs a run at some point where your players are hired to take down a different team of runners that "broke the rules". They will find two things.

1. Following the RAW rules it is a bitch to really vanish in 4th edition. Especially if you don't skip town or the country.

2. When ambushed even mighty runners go down surprisingly easy.

How do you know the difference between that the gear was jacked or destroyed? How do you differentiate when the bodies were harvested by ghouls and when the bodies were dissected by the runners for implants?

1. Following the RAW rules, it may or may not be easy to vanish in 4th Ed. It depends really.

2. It can be surprisingly difficult to ambush someone. Even a mage sniper can find it really difficult to do so.

This is true, but unless the GM enforces it, the players will still probably try. And I don't have a problem with GM's discouraging rampant looting, but then they need to adjust the income for the runners so they don't have to resort to things like that.

I agree with that if the runners are looting expensive equipment or causing massive property damage, but I doubt that if you just ran off with their multi-million prototype, that they'll be mad that you took a few SMGs and grenades from the security guards, too.

Similarly if you just killed off a whole unit of Red Samurai, I doubt Renraku execs would be concerned that you are in possession of some high grade bang-bangs.

And if the job is massive property damage, chances are that they'd not find enough left of the guards on site anyway.

That's a question for the corpers to try and figure out, and the GM to determine if they can (maybe throw in some rolls)

As for your Red Samurai comment.

I think the GM should just think of how a fairly heartless corp exec with a limited but possibly very large budget would react. (And maybe some other NPCs too, sometimes a guy just won't understand that offing his girlfriend was just business).

On that note as I recall from the old fluff SK was known for keeping the heat on even when it wouldn't do their bottom line any good, just to try and scare runners off of jobs against SK.

ok back tot he OP

just my two cents, I am happy to give change if needed.

The team has a few extra Areas alpha's ect. ok. That is a fairly cheap weapon all in all. now as stated, you have the issue of the RFID tags, though a burner can take care of that, what is it, 250 cash for one? pulse spell could too. but still thats not really much in the way of loot. Hell I've seen groups pick up pistols and coms from people they down to use as drop items, take out the bat's and kill the RFID's stick in the box O guns and box O coms, When you need one for just that one shot you use it then drop it in the street, and they normaly come compleat with another persons finger prints

But again as stated, if looting is an issue, and for just what the first post mentioned it does not seem to be one yet, Just don't give the guards and such those types of weapons, Use AK's instead if you need an assult rifle, Their cheap and basic. The grenades, again not a real issue unless they are walking out with boxes, The ammo? 1,000 rounds, I don't have a book with me but lets assume thats 30 bucks per box of 10 rounds, again assuming this is basic ammo. Thats what? 3k. thats it. and if they go to fence it, Thats even less since yo uhave to pay the fence.

OH don't forget they need Mag's for that ammo, I mean the bullets won't magicly load them selfs into there guns.

All in all from just what the OP says I don't see any problems unless yo uare shooting for a very low level game, and when I say low I mean, heavyest weapon teh PC's getting would be a hunting rifle hehe,

Just two cents, *hands you your change,*

SK keep the heat on because Lowfyr can afford to take the long view and when an immortal takes the long view, it is a very long view. Keeping the heat on might not do their bottom line any good in the short term.

Some of you are clearly blowing this out of proportion. Even taking RFID into account, it should be easy to "vanish" a stolen gun. And unless we're talking nuclear bombs, entire arms shipments to the Aztlán military, or something else on that scale, the corps won't be gunning for your group because of the stolen gear. If you think they should, that's probably the control-freak part of your brain speaking. Pay no attention to it.

Your group has probably gotten those looted guns in the course of doing something much worse to the organization that owned them, and that's what they'll be mad about. And if your shadowrunners can get away with raiding warehouses and stealing sooper-sekrit prototypes every month or so, they can defnitely get away with stealing a little gear during those runs.

I'd say that there seems to be two lines of thought on this. Don't do it because it will come back to haunt you and the why not it is just a litttle extra nuyen. Personally, I think it really depends on the job that the group is on. The runs where massive mayhem is required, looting should be second nature (note the comments on biometric safetys and like), also note that a 400 pistol is not that important, a 4,000,000 T-Bird with sota ECM and ECCM is. That being said the corp really doesn't care about the runners except the impact on the bottom line (Managers/Execs with alternate motivations being an exception).

I guess my opinion of looting of bodies can be distilled into: like stealing office supplies during a bank job.

Two words: Stealth Tags.

EDIT: And another two words: Sympathetic Link.

EDIT 2: RFID Tags only matter when A) They're found out and B) When you can burn them. Stealth Tags are really hard to find, and immune to the normal RFID Burner (pulse would still work, but does the mage have that spell?). Having the Initiated Wagemage use the rifle of his best friend as a Sympathetic Link to cast, say, Clairvoiance/Clairaudience to find partie's hidden base, on the other hand, is harder to get around. Not to mention RFID tags are so small they can be eaten without you even knowing it. It's entirely possible that EVERY round of ammo they stole has a 'tag in it, for shipping/inventory purposes (built into the casing, so as not to be obvious).

Another two words: So what?

It's not nice when you get hit with a ritual napalm, becouse you took a gun that can be used as a link to you. Or the corp strike team tracks you down becouse of the tags in that gun.

Thank you for using your intuition and wisom.

And they would be (unrealistic in my opinion) examples of in-game consequences for their actions. I still don't see what is so terrible about picking up a couple of weapons along the way.

Agreed. I mean, if you're worried about RFID tags, then you should probably realize that the MacGuffin you dragged out of the facility is likely absolutely crawling with them.

Their not consequences of them taking the weapons, their consuquences of them doing a run against the corp, the stolen guns with tags just makes finding them much easier.

Their not consequences of them taking the weapons, their consuquences of them doing a run against the corp, the stolen guns with tags just makes finding them much easier.

Damn double post.

See Whipstitch's post.

There are ways around being tracked. But that is really beside the point. If the Corps went around tracking down everyone who does a Shadowrun against them, there wouldn't be many actual 'runners to do the jobs (or much of a game). It would be counter-productive, as the Corps need a group of deniable assets.

The corps assume a certain amount of losses from shadowruns in their profit calculations, and if you snag a couple machine guns and some ammo off some bodies during a run, that's just part of the losses. It's certainly not worth the cost for a corp to get their magicians to use some ritual magic on you just because you took a couple guns. The guns are just a drop in the bucket to a corp, and the corp'll just write em off and go on. If you did do enough damage on that last run that the corp is really going to come looking for you, then they were going to find you anyways, regardless if you took the guns or not.

Basically, if you think your players looting guns unbalances the game, then don't give the security guards they face such powerful weapons. Or you can discourage them from looting using some of the other methods discussed here, but there's really nothing wrong or unrealistic about looting.