How do you handle players that want to create something new in-game using in-game skills? Obviously, we all cannot be Tony Stark and have pure awesomeness of 12s in every conceivable B/R skill under SR4.

But still, players are inventive and creative creatures who will often use something in ways wholely unintended and achieve unintended results that are grossly out of proportion to the effort & costs involved.

So how do you handle things like this? Has it come up? If they have, please spill the beans. Love to see some good stories or past runs that resulted in players making new toys.

We've got a player right now building his own sniper rifle. One of the good things to player built items is that they take a while (software even more so, I think that's an extended test [6 months]), so the GM has time.

I don't know all of the mods he's putting into his gun, but due to the number some of them are likely going to take up mod slots, even though they're stock (say, Additional Clip--there are no guns currently on the market standard with two clips, so making that work is a mod (the Sakura Fubuki not withstanding)).

Quick breakdown (esp. powered break down) is also mod-only. Sure, sniper rifles are meant to come apart, but the amount of gadgetry that goes into powered break down is a bit much IMO and takes up some modification room.

Likely this won't matter, as he doesn't intend to do mods later, but it would limit how much he can do.

As for me, I will be having an NPC create an item that does something not covered by RAW at all: shapeshifting armor (force 2 power foci equivalent).

I let the player stat it out, and hand it off to me for approval. I might tweak it a bit, but generally I approve them.

Like a katana with microfiberoptic tracing that lets it direct a laser beam down the blade.

Keep in mind that, in theory, the market has already seen these and has compensated (and, as an addendum, the Shadowrun rules are not all-encompassing. MarketRun is a different game). Thusly, the factors active against production of this particular product would be in place, and are not yet documented in the rules (in most cases).

Long story short, in cases where a product can be made for relatively little investment in time and resources, and has a very high-profit margin, the only rational reason that product can exist like that is because there are external factors in play. Any PC now producing this item now has to deal with these factors as well, but without the assistant of a megacorp behind him.

Factors include:
1) Legal, physical or market limitations on necessary goods. Sure you may have the skill to build an atomic bomb, but without uranium, it's not doing much. Keep in mind, the market price for an item may not reflect the actual selling price or availability of an item (case in point, gold's market price is currently far below what anyone is actually selling it for).

2) External pressures regarding the actual production or modification of the good. If you start making BTLs, Lone Star, the FBI, DEA and the mob are all going to be on you. If you're making a sniper rifle, that is illegal, and the government will be interested in stopping that (or at least getting lots of bribes). And just because you only made one doesn't mean much - making one means you can make more. Even legal activities generally require a good amount of book-keeping, and failure to do so results in fines and jail time (oh, you don't have a SIN? So sorry!) Prostitution might be legal, but you better believe the mob doesn't appreciate the competition, and they'll knock you down right quick. Making cheap radios? Renraku doesn't mind spending a few thousand to burn down your shop and ruin your business. And that's ignoring all the activities that just piss off your neighbors.

3) Difficulties storing goods. Alright, you just built your own Panzer. Now, where are you going to store it? You made $200k of enchanted materials. How long do you think it'll take news to hit the streets that you've got $200k of fat loot sitting pretty in the back of your store.

4) Finding a buyer. The cost for making gold radicals is extraordinary, and the requirements low. Why doesn't everyone who needs it (who are, almost by definition, all magically active and therefore capable of talismongering) making it themselves? Really? Most likely they are. You just made half a million in gold radicals you can't move because everyone who wants them makes them themselves or through friendly connections. And good luck offloading that sniper rifle to anyone for a reasonable price without their thinking it must be drek-hot to be selling on the streets.

5) Splitting the profits. You sold a hundred gallons of beer. UCAS wants its cut in federal income. Seattle wants its local taxes. Liquor taxes. Wholesaler licenses and taxes. Ares didn't approve commercial activity for your flat, so you have to pay their fee. Renraku served as your distributor, so they get a cut. The Mafia has been selling booze on this block for years, but they'll tolerate you - for a price. Plus you've got loans to pay back and the guards who keep the hooligans out of your brewery. You don't pay any of those people and armed men break into your store and trash your stuff. Good luck there, chummer, and welcome to the rat race with the rest of us.


Those, of course, are for when a PC is building something he really shouldn't (or which doesn't make sense - like I said, anything where he's getting more profit for his work than Shadowrunning should be very suspect). I've had people break the game selling gold radicals and making basically $200k a month. I've learned my lesson.

Edit: If the PC is only making a new item and the question is if I'll allow it, I'll generally allow it, although I may have to make modifications to make it fit. It takes a lot of consideration, but I've found that players have a lot more fun when it's THEIR spell/gun/vehicle/power at work and not one pre-written in the book.

Thats about what I do.

mos of the time, i am not the one to handle such things . .
i am more likely to be on the side that makes GM's go:"i did not know it could do that O.o" by inventing crazy ideas like the Scorpion from MOrtal Combat Cyber-suite . .

We sold booze in Serenity once. I think it was my character (idea, method) and the engineer (parts, construction) who ultimately made the money, though we split the raw booze among other players (1 gallon to the captain, the rest (some 100 gallons or so of very nice rum--uh...future tech x2 equivalent?*) split between the two of us and the rest of the crew (captain included--she just got some extra). The two of us then sold our 50 gallons worth for cash (what the crew did with their was either we sold it for them and they got the cash, or they kept it).

Not that we had any concept of what money was worth in that game. You could easily start out with enough money to buy anything you ever needed (heck, there's even a positive quality that by the rules means that once in a blue moon a character can buy a whole ship (a small one, but at 18,000 credits it was the most expensive thing you could get "for free" from a trust fund--and that was without having crazy dice to the roll, that's my character's dice--had to roll an 18 on a d12+d6, so 1/72 odds and it was possible to have d12 + d6 +d6 to the roll without blatant twinking: max attribute + middling skill)).


*I forget how Serenity did tech levels, there was a x2, a x5 and a x10 cost multiplier for which you got certain bonuses, i.e. smaller size, or better damage, or larger clip size (for guns) kind of thing. x10 was the "do whatever you want" sort of level.