Part of my current team of players are asking me to create an alternate game for them when the other PCs are unavailable. However, they do not want to be shadowrunners per se, but rather acting as an accredited security/detective agency. In other words, they will not (knowingly) accept illegal jobs. I'm asking what everybody else's take is on this? Has anybody tried running a game like this? Any suggestions?

Currently, I'm thinking that the following should apply:
All the PCs must have legitimate SINs, without criminal records.
A bit of knowledge Law, and etiquette (Street)? Perhaps at 3 minimum?
Gun bunnies (killers) need not apply.

Of course, this is still in the planning stages, so I'd appreciate any feedback.

Absolutely. Why not?

You've got the former police detective that quit/got fired over that one troubling case that still haunts him (or her).

You've got the wiz-kid matrix security expert that has managed to not get caught doing anything too illegal. Yet.

And the competent guy who wanted to be a BLANK, but couldn't because he didn't have the connections to get his foot in the door, so now he works the same job in the private industry which brings him into direct competition with the job he originally wanted.

Oh, and there's always the reformed bad guy that's trying on a white hat for a change.


There are plenty of jobs in 'White' Intelligence to be had. They don't pay as well as "Black" ops but they're just as necessary. In fact, most of the data in black ops briefings comes from white intelligence.

The critical difference is the level of violence and destruction they will be able to get away with. In white intel you've got to deal with the authorities with your real name and address, which means that that thug had better damned well been drawing a weapon when you shot him. The he-didn't-tell-me-what-I-wanted-to-know-so-I-shot-him-in-the-knee thing just doesn't go over too well when you're wearing the white hat.

Of course, there's nothing stopping these very same people from moonlighting on actual shadowruns either. The risks, though, are significantly higher.

Hmmm ... can a former criminal get a license to own and carry a firearm? If they are a legit business, then shouldn't a criminal SIN be a no-no?

What about Gray Ops?

why not?
bodyguards or bounty-hunters are big in shadowrun . .

i once had a concept that made a gang into a corporation more or less.
i called it trog-corp ^^

Hmmm ... I suppose ...

I don't think you have to be a runner to play shadowrun. There are plenty of legal high-risk high-excitement occupations to go around.

You could play as a Doc-Wagon High Threat Response team, A freelance security/detective company or even as corporate special ops. (A lot like being a shadowrunner, but you get to fool around with deltaware, stealth helicopters and prototype kit on a regular basis!)

I would very much enjoy playing a team of runners in the vein of ninja burger. Richard Villiers is hungry and doesn't want to leave his board room! Get to the top, give him his food and get out, all with minimal casualties and property damage!

OR Lofwyr's personal chefs. Procure rare delicacies and cook them to perfection - or replace them on the menu if you fail.

Some of my favorite games to GM were with private eye PCs. It can be difficult to juggle the spotlight balance; plus, they'll be splitting up most of the time, and that makes it more work for you to keep up with what's happening to each character. Daily life of the characters really comes to the fore, too. Take the muscle for example, a lot of the time, he's going to be bored, right? While the hacker does his thing and the face schmoozes some witness (and doesn't want company, so'ka?), the muscle wanders down to the local gym, but that's a great opportunity for him to take some street kid under his wing and teach him some moves, or build contacts by showing his stuff in the ring, maybe he ends up joining some underground fight club, etc. You just have to keep going around the table and keeping each player involved.

The advantage of running security, is the team isn't going to be splitting up very often.

I'm pretty much doing the same thing at the moment. My side game has my players as Knight Errant Detectives in L.A. We had our first session last Saturday and it went smoothly, with the exception of the Dwarf who is styled a little too much like Vic Mackie from The Shield for my comfort. I may have to call in Internal Affairs at some point to investigate corruption.

How about pest control/ghost busters? Some days you're killing termites other days you're killing termite spirits or shooting assault cannons at juggernauts.

Depends on where the criminal SIN was acquired, how good a fake SIN you can get, and the legal details of the local jurisdiction.

But the question you should be asking is: Does my PC need a gun, and if so, do I need a license?

Food procurement specialists eh?

This is okay for my group as character development is fun for most of the role-players, its the roll-players that are often absent anyways.

Hmmm ... KE is too well funded, we were thinking of a small detective/security agency owned and run by the players.

As a detective/security agency, they do need firearms (mostly pistols) with license to own, carry concealed, and use. I'm not sure if they are willing to go with a fake SIN as they want to begin the campaign as legit gray runners.

Characters were plotted out last night, so far, very little cyberware were chosen. We are running on 400BP, but with a restriction of no (F) availability items. We are discussing the price of the licenses for items with a restricted availability, since there is no hard and fast rules, we backslid to SR3 and will probably go with 10% of the price of the item.

Does anyone have any suggestions for the price/cost of incorporating?

Twenty-First Century V.O.T.E.

50 to file the form in triplicate to eight regulatory agencies. 1,200 to get a 12 month subscription to Legal Beagle, an automated legal-self-help website (complete with forums, blogs, advice columns, library, downloadable forms, and 1 hour monthly with a rating 3 Attorney-Agent). Additional time available with Attorney-Agent for 20 per hour.

Note that incorporating does not confir extraterritorial status nor does it make you an A/AA/AAA corp.

We ran a game like that. Well, sort of. We were a specialty security consulting company. We did magic, matrix, physical security, surveillance, counter surveillance, drone networks, etc. Plus Red team exercises. where we were paid to break into sites to test security.

We were assumed, as part of the background, to have security licenses for pretty much everything. After all we SOLD people steel lynxs with machine guns and automatic grenade launchers and had legitimate business reasons to own and carry sequencers and maglock passkeys, hacking software, etc.

We were very selective in who we did illegal work for, but we did. We a fairly high level contacts with a very large security company who fed us Red Team work and some specialty stuff. Part of our arrangement was that we would never run against a client or past client nor the clients/subsidiaries of our contact. Which tended to limit our shadow customer base, but we did OK.

There was a lot of hand-waving how things happened with the business, as it's not fun to run Shadow Small Business Admin.

The best part is there may be event that forces these legitimate security specialists/detectives to fall into the shadows.

They just want to be a legit company, I doubt they are looking for extraterritoriality. Thanks for the rates.

Hmmmm ... interesting ... do you still have any game notes? I'm eager to accept second hand runs.

Says you! You have no idea how easy it is to make things INTERESTING when you have a PC doing the actual administration Keep track of that bad roll when he was filling out the tax forms for the company.....Yeah..that came back to bit them a couple years later....

Runners can easily fill a private investigator sort of role. As long as you don't shoot anyone in the face that's about as legit as you can get when actually shadowrunning. Possible runs could be investigations into missing persons, or snooping around on a cheating wife. While this doesnt always make the most interesting runs you could always throw in complications.

Adventure ideas would be greatly appreciated.

There is a game already out on this subject: It is called Millenium's End.

If you don't like the laws in one country, just move to another. An Aztechnology sponsored company does not have to worry about UCAS law on its own soil. A TT company that runs security for TT interests will have its forms filled out for them.

The majority of the work will be close protection and security consultancy.

I suppose a Shadowteam could probably assemble a legit company with various branches for each illegal activity, as long as each activity was done on extraterritorial property.

Investigating Insurance Claims

• Employers: Insurance Companies, Banks
• Payout: 10% of the insurance value for uncovering fraud
• Subject to minimum retainer: Yes
• Jobs: Recovery of stolen good. Proof of contract violation/fraud (i.e. faked death, crime used to collect, inflated value of goods/residence, false identity). Risk assessment (researching construction sites, safety standards, investigating business practices, testing security).
• Blackhat: Blackmailing fraud perpetrators for their insurance money.
• Hook: He had a million dollar policy on the house, and his wife. She died in the fire, so it goes. Pretty convenient deal for him. Maybe he did the deed, and then again bad shit seems to happen around this poor slob. Outside forces or just greed?

Civil Suit

• Employers: Corporations, Law Firms, Interest Groups, Private Citizens
• Payout: 10% of the claim value for uncovering fraud/proving liability
• Subject to minimum retainer: Yes
• Jobs: Witness Discovery, Recovery, Deprogramming. Establish Link (company factory produces waste, company truck transport waste, waste dumped, toxic spirits manifest, locals attacked by spirits). Break Link (uncover toxic shaman summoning spirits from corporate approved dump). Establish Knowledge (Uncover internal memos, whistle-blowers, conspiracy to commit fraud, etc).
• Blackhat: Intimidating/eliminating witnesses/plaintiffs. Tampering with evidence. Inventing expert witnesses.
• Hook: She would have been beautiful if half her face wasn't melted into a smear of scars and welts. You know the story, everybody does, a bad batch of Angelite Cosmetics face cream. The corp's been claiming sabotage, even dragging some supposed shadowrunners through the limelight, but Ms. Lovebrook is telling a different story. Apparently someone at Angelite contacted her, saying she had evidence that a manager had substituted an ingredient to save money on the face cream. She was supposed to meet Lovebrook with the evidence, but disappeared. All you've got is a voice, kindly recorded by the client, and a bar telecomm. Hell, that's more than you usually get...

Missing Person

• Employers: Corporations, Private Citizens
• Payout: Hourly +Expenses
• Subject to minimum retainer: Yes
• Jobs: Deprogramming. Bounty hunting. Kidnapper negotiations, Ransom courier.
• Blackhat: Locate persons under a witness protection program.
• Hook: This isn't the first person to go missing after joining the Universal Brotherhood. Is it just another cult, or is there something more going on here? Even investigators seems to disappear when they poke around the church too deeply.

Criminal Investigation / Intel

• Employers: Foreign Nations, Corporations, Private Citizens
• Payout: Hourly +Expenses
• Subject to minimum retainer: Yes
• Jobs: Surveillance, Tailing, Infiltration/undercover, Analysis, Expert witness, Making arrests, Extradition, Name clearing (find the real killer, etc).
• Blackhat: Vigilante justice, see Dirt digging.
• Hook: The Shalish have been overwhelmed by a flood of daterapes involving the drug Lael. They've traced the dealers to Seattle and want the detectives to apprehend the smugglers and extradite them, jumping through all the legal hoops and loopholes they can. The only question is why hasn't the Star acted already?

Dirt Digging

• Employers: Paparazzi, Politicians, Law Firms, Interest Groups, Corporations, Other
• Payout: Hourly +Expenses
• Subject to minimum retainer: Double
• Jobs: Surveillance, Tailing, Infiltration/undercover, B&E, Hacking, Bugging, Networking, Trash diving
• Blackhat: Blackmail, Planting evidence.
• Hook: Well, I've got good news and bad news. Your wife isn't cheating on you. But she is a Mantis spirit who spends her evenings devouring men. Oh, and she's planning on killing you, by using mind control over me. Sorry.

Incident investigation.

• Employers: Companies, high-wealth person
• Payout: Hourly/daily rate (maybe 100/hour/person, 600/day/person) Plus good contacts/bonus if successful
• Jobs: Something is missing and it's not obvious how. Figure out how/if it left. Threats are being made, find who and convince them to stop/contact police. Someone is acting oddly, why? Someone is missing, find out why. Someone got in without setting off the alarms/being detected, How did they and how can we close the hole. Someone broke in and stole something minor, what did they actually come to get/find and what did they really gain access to/do?
• Blackhat: I want the scum dead as an example! Break in and get it back!

Thanks for the adventure ideas.

One of my players used to constantly make jokes that we should play this kind of game (except I think he was pushing for pizza delivery . Never thought to actually take it seriously, but it might be fun!

Deliverators for Godfather's Pizza...